


Aziraphale Fell's Unfortunate Situation

by Spades813



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Angels vs. Demons, Aziraphale and Crowley eventually fall in love (eventually), Aziraphale is completely human not secretly an angel, Aziraphale is very closeted, Aziraphale owns a bookshop, Aziraphale winds up in some shit he didn't mean to be in, Aziraphale's Bookshop (Good Omens), Bookstores, Crowley tries to protect Aziraphale from all the shit going on, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotionally Repressed, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Has a plot, Homophobia, Human Aziraphale, Hurt Aziraphale (Good Omens), M/M, Protective Crowley, Religious Guilt, Slow Burn, This will be a whole cast story, crowley x aziraphale, eventual graphic violence, in progress, smut later on
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-14
Updated: 2019-08-02
Packaged: 2020-06-28 03:55:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 32,978
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19804198
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Spades813/pseuds/Spades813
Summary: Fleeing from his extremely religious and overbearing family, Aziraphale heads to London to accomplish his dreams of opening a bookshop of his very own. He wasn't anticipating the fact, though, that the shop is located atop sacred ground and hiding a book within its walls that predicts the future.As if living in newly found poverty, internalized guilt towards his own sexuality, and a haunting past wasn't enough of an issue to deal with- Aziraphale becomes the target of both angels and demons alike and finds himself in the midst of Armageddon.He becomes very aware very quickly that he's in imminent danger and the only person offering protection (for something in exchange) is a demon that stole his blueberry crepes.(I'm just really bad at summaries)





	1. Chapter 1

A/N: Ok, so hear me out this chapter is sort of slow-ish? But it was necessary to set up the rest of the story. I have an entire intricate plot planned out with this story, but I don’t know if anyone is even remotely interested in reading it. So please let me know if you enjoy it. Also side note I wrote this at 7 am and I have officially been awake 24 hours so please send help.

xxXXXxxx

Things could be better. 

A lot better, in fact; if he were being completely honest with himself. Aziraphale, against his own best judgement, fled from home with only a few hundred pounds sitting at a standstill in his bank account. He was twenty-four years old, straight out of university that his father had so generously paid for. Indeed, it was very generous of his father, but it came with a great catch. He had to earn a degree in accounting like his father had wanted him to. Everything up until this point in his life had been what his father wanted him to do.

Aziraphale grew up in a sternly religious household with traditional rules and only a catholic school to attend (there was no room for arguments in this matter and Aziraphale didn’t dare attempt). Every Sunday they attended church like literal clockwork adorned in their finest suits. The Fell family was one of tradition and prided on keeping up good appearances to the public of Tadfield. They were the sort of family that onlookers would say were the epitome of all things normal and moral, but they were anything but happy. The only thing that was perhaps abnormal about them was the lack of a matriarch. Aziraphale’s mother found her husband too dreadful to bear any longer with his large demands and uptight rules. She had run away to the continent to join the gypsies when he was very young. The only thing he truly remembered about her were her exceedingly kind eyes that seemed to eternally smile from within. It was a trait he believed he had inherited. Fittingly, his two older brothers greatly resembled their father and bore no signs of their mother.

He used to blame his mother a great deal for how his father treated him and his brothers. After she had left the situation at home had just gotten that much worse. However, right before he left home he finally made peace with his mother’s decision and understood just how suffocating being near his father could make a person feel. Aziraphale only wished that she had taken him with her.

Despite all odds of getting out of that incredibly toxic household, Aziraphale had finally done it. Right as graduation ended and parents were making their way to greet their newly grads to snap photographs to remember forever; Aziraphale was throwing off his gown and grabbing his suitcase. As he headed for the door, he caught a faint glimpse of his father and brothers’ enraged faces just as he threw the door open.

It had been a month since then. Here he was in London where they say dreams truly can come true. Or possibly that was New York… he never paid much attention to those sorts of things. Ah, well, it didn’t matter anymore. With the money he had saved up through working in a local library, Aziraphale bought an old space just below a flat. The landlord was living in said flat and had no use for the space below that held a shop window and was indeed intended for a shop.

The only problem was the shop was in a state of utter disaster. Aziraphale arrived with high hopes, but the floorboards were popping out from their set placements, the till had to be pried open with a screwdriver, and the paint was chipped off the walls in odd spotty ways. Usually he would complain (more like send a strongly-worded note), but he knew he got what he paid for. It was the sole reason the space was so affordable.

Once he had settled in the backroom of the shop, Aziraphale went to the local flea market and through a bunch of roundabout methods- picked out a great deal of bookshelves and transported them back to the bookshop. It took a few more days for the books from his home to arrive. He had set up accomodations for that before he had left home. 

He had been open for about a week now and was hoping that business would be better so he could actually afford to fix all of the issues with the shop or at least put a bathtub in the back room where he now lived.

The back room had a small kitchenette, a mattress he had put on the floor himself, and a square room that kept a toilet and sink. Essentially, Aziraphale found himself taking sink baths. Obviously whenever he bathed he didn’t have an audience, but he felt so humiliated and degraded. He never wished to feel that intimate with his own anatomy. His catholic upbringing wouldn’t permit it. 

Aziraphale wiped away a bead of sweat travelling down his temple as he pushed an armchair across the shop, finding that it looked much better in the corner. If other bookworms were anything like himself- corners were extremely comforting. He didn’t really believe that anyone would actually use the chair, though. All of the furniture in the shop was secondhand and most were stained. 

“We must work with what we have got, Aziraphale Fell,” he whispered to himself, using his full name as a sort of “he meant business” with himself. 

Standing up straight and pressing his palms against his back to pop the knots out, Aziraphale paced to the front window of the shop. He looked out at the passerbys not even so much as paying a glance to his shop. “Oh dear, what am I doing wrong?” he sulked.

Maybe he should have done a better paint job on the sign outside. First impressions are everything, but all that he could afford was the cheap paint you buy for children’s wood crafts. What he suspected to be the neighbourhood watch was already eyeing up his shop. Within three days of moving in he had received a fruit basket with a small note saying that they loved the idea of a new bookshop in the neighbourhood and that they “couldn’t wait to see how you fix it up to fit the rest of the block”. Little did they know, Aziraphale had absolutely no intention of fixing the shop up until he could bathe like a regular human being. The threat came with free fruit though, which was appreciated. It had been his dream to open a bookshop since he was a child and he wasn’t going to make it to the standards of the neighbourhood watch. 

He sighed. He was well aware of the fact that he kept making optimistic excuses about his situation to keep up his morale.

Accepting that no one was going to visit his shop today, Aziraphale grabbed his coat off the hook by the door and slipped it on. Grabbing the door handle, he wrenched the thing open and left down the street with his hands in his pockets after locking up. London was definitely something that he had to adjust to. The sheer amount of people on one block rivaled the entire population of Tadfield. Nevertheless, he enjoyed his stroll down to the bakery that he had made sure to scope out when he moved in.

However, as he walked he couldn’t help this feeling that was quickly crawling up his spine.

This feeling of being watched. How strange was that?

It was probably the same simps that sent him the basket if anything.

Approaching a small bakery painted a brilliant shade of red, Aziraphale could smell the baked goods radiating from the building. Ah, there was nothing like a nice blueberry crepe to satisfy his worries. He was afraid that if his stress became too high he may suffer from a premature stroke at this point. 

Opening the door, Aziraphale hummed to himself to passify his nerves. The feeling of being watched was still present against the hair on the back of his neck, but he shrugged it away. 

“Hello, welcome to Baked Devices,” a woman from behind the counter spoke, bearing a very pretty smile and a distinct American accent.

Aziraphale approached the counter with a small smile of his own. “Hello, there. I’m quite new here, is there anything you would recommend?”

Her smile grew greater, most likely at the prospect of having a new long term customer. However, as Aziraphale gazed at her more he couldn’t help but think she didn’t look like the sort of person that would run a bakery. He couldn’t exactly put his finger on what it was, but she had an air of other worldly-ness to her. The kind of person that you can look at and just see the intelligence burning in their eyes. As if they know some sort of secret you couldn’t possibly ever fathom. Aziraphale got the distinct impression that behind the woman’s round glasses she was indeed holding a deep secret.

“Of course, I would be happy to recommend. Here at Baked Devices we have a large array of baked goods from cookies, to crepes, to muffins, to some Italian classics and so on. What are you in the mood for Mr….?” she drawled off, staring at him very expectantly. Her eyes seemed to zero in on him completely and that feeling of her being of some other world crept back.

Aziraphale didn’t think Londoners were the type to try to be on a name basis with their customers. They were quite aloof people, afterall. “Mr. Fell,” he supplied, “And crepes sound quite lovely, do you have blueberry crepes?” 

At this point in conversation, Aziraphale became very aware of someone now standing behind him. He could feel the heat radiating off of the other body and to be able to feel that meant that they were standing quite close. One thing was for sure, Aziraphale never appreciated anyone in his personal space. It was sacred to him. Not only that, but the person behind him was tapping their foot incessantly. 

The ladies eyes darted from him to over his shoulder, her smile noticeably dropping before it regained its brilliance when she turned back to him. “Yes, we do. Is that what you would like?”

Aziraphale nodded, fishing out the old, beaten leather wallet out from his pocket. “Yes, please.”

“Ok,” she said, typing something into the till, “that will be four-fifty, please.”

He nodded and handed her the exact amount. She took it and thanked him, informing him it would be right out.

As he stepped away from the counter and from the strange person standing dangerously close behind him, he heard said person behind him speak up to order. 

“I’ll take whatever he ordered,” a gruff voice said.

“I didn’t know your type would enjoy blueberry crepes,” she replied shortly, animosity practically seeping out with the smallest amount of effort.

“They are now. Just take the money,” the voice said.

Furrowing his brows, Aziraphale strode across the room to a seat by the window to wait at. Such a strange conversation to overhear. He tried to forget the odd occurrence as he took in the sight of the bakery. It was definitely more grand than anything they had in Tadfield, but it still had that quaint small town feel that he was missing in London despite all of the tables filled with patrons. 

A short wait went by when he heard the voice of a different man call out, “Blueberry crepes!”

Aziraphale stood from his stool and approached the counter with a gracious smile directed at a man with short black hair and a long nose occupied by “hipster” glasses. Said man was holding a clear plastic container of two blueberry crepes in his direction.

“Here you are, sir. I hope you enjoy them,” the man said as he handed the box to Azira.

Just as the plastic container reached Aziraphale’s slightly pudgy hand and his mouth watered at the thought of the delicious looking crepes, a long arm clad in black reached over his shoulder and snatched the box from his light grip. “Wha-” he spun on his heel to confront the perpetrator. Aziraphale was about to whirl on whoever dared to be so impolite as to take the container from him.

“I believe this is mine. Thank you, Newt. Always a pleasure,” the man from earlier said with a good amount of pompous ego etched into his voice.

Finally seeing who the gruff voice belonged to, Aziraphale wasn’t quite happy that he had looked. His poor catholic heart could barely take the sight in without feeling a little dizzy. Maybe it was from years of ingrained (brainwashing) distaste for anything that was flashy, but whatever it was the man’s state of….himself just made him incredibly incredulous for some odd reason. There was no reason to be confused, but he was.

The man was about a head taller, all lanky limbs and angled bones. He was adorned from head to toe in black from his snakeskin boots that Aziraphale hoped weren’t real to the opaque sunglasses atop the bridge of his slightly hooked nose. What was most whirling about his appearance, however, was the man’s vivid red hair and a snake tattoo right in front of his right ear. Was that hair colour even natural? 

Even though he couldn’t see the other’s eyes through the sunglass lenses, he knew the other was staring back at him just as equally. He felt scrutinized under the intense stare he was receiving.

The man’s lip quirked up and just like that the trance that had befallen them was broken. The man with the red hair turned around and stalked out the door from whence he came along with Aziraphale’s crepes and a sarcastic salute (to whom, he didn’t know). 

Now, Aziraphale has put up with a lot of shit in his life. His father’s scrutiny, his brothers’ taunts for being soft and bookish, and the nuns’ abuse for having too many questions. When he bought the bookshop he told himself that he would no longer take anyone’s grief. Not a single soul. So far he hadn’t truly lived up to it. He supposed whether he was in Tadfield or in London, he was still miraculously a pushover. Maybe it was just a part of who he was.

However, Aziraphale has just had one of the worst weeks of his life. His landlord was abrasive and as seedy as expected, he was most probably being stalked by the neighbourhood watch, and now this...this snake man had stolen his crepes. 

Biting the inside of his cheek, Aziraphale mustered up all of the courage at his disposal and strode out the door after the man; the door ringed behind him. He stomped right after him down the bustling street.

“Excuse me,” he said. 

No response.

A little firmer he said, “Pardon me.”

In an instant, just as Aziraphale was catching up to the man, the target spun around on his heel an inch from him. Aziraphale immediately skidded to a halt and gazed up into the sunglasses of the thief. All courage was now officially gone as he felt like his soul was being bored into by a gaze he still couldn’t see.

“Uhm, hello-”

“Yes?” the man asked with an impatient sigh and quirked brow, regarding Aziraphale like he was some sort of gum that he had just stepped in with his expensive, snakeskin boots.

“Well, you see- uhm” Aziraphale fumbled over his words. He didn’t know what made him think that out of the deepest blue of the godforsaken seven seas that he could just muster up courage from nowhere. At heart he was primarily a gentle being. 

The man just rolled his head backwards with a dramatic sigh, “Look, I don’t have time for this. What is it?”

Aziraphale snapped his mouth shut and swallowed his fear in an instant. This man was clearly very rude and he didn’t deserve his pleasantries. “That was my order you stole and I would appreciate it if you returned it to me.”

The red haired man glanced down at the plastic container in his hands and then back to him with disbelief. At first, Aziraphale believed it to be disbelief from him having the courage to tell the man like it was, but it was actually because Aziraphale was being sort of absurd. “You’re telling me instead of taking the next order, you followed me for a block just to demand food that has probably grown cold by now?”

Suddenly Azira felt very, very small. 

“Well, yes.... But that is rightfully mine. You grabbed it from my hands like some hooligan.”

The man’s mouth twitched at the corner as if he was about to let out a great burst of laughter and was holding it back. “Did you just call me a ‘hooligan’?”

“I said like a hooligan.”

“Which implies you called me a hooligan, so there we are, then. Let me give you a little life lesson, ok, oldie?” He chided and crossed his arms over his chest, standing up impossibly taller. 

Aziraphale was already taking great offense, seeing as this fellow appeared to be at least two years older than he was. Either that or his face was just more worn from the woes of life.

“If you have somewhere to be and people to see, but you want something to nibble on ASAP then you order whatever the person in front of you orders. That way you can get your order sooner and the bloke you left behind pisses off when he gets the next one that comes out. These are the laws of the land, but it seems you just can’t follow them.”

“Where I come from, we do not tolerate such rudeness. I don’t care about any laws made up by sods like you, I want my blueberry crepes,” Aziraphale said as sternly and politely as he could. 

The man stared at him with one hip sticking out slightly to the side. For what felt like an absolute eternity, he just regarded Aziraphale. “All right. What’s your name, then?”

“I beg your pardon?” Aziraphale asked. He was growing very tired of this day very quickly. He just wished to return home with his crepes and curl up in his bed, or rather his mattress on the floor. 

The man gave another dramatic sigh as if just talking to Aziraphale was draining him. “I asked for your name. In return, I may give you your blasted crepes.”

Aziraphale didn’t quite like the sound of this arrangement. But if it meant getting his crepes finally then sod it all. Hopefully they were still somewhat warm, but he seriously doubted it.

“Aziraphale,” he gave a short glare.

“Aziraphale? What kind of name is that?”

“It’s biblical,” he retorted.

“Ngk, religious then?” the man handed over the crepes which Aziraphale graciously took. “Not really a surprise, I guess.”

“Thank you,” Aziraphale huffed. He didn’t mean it at all. “I’ll be on my way now, if that’s all.”

Before the stranger with the snake tattoo could say another word, Aziraphale was off speed walking back to his shop. As he made his way there he still had the distinct feeling of being watched.

It was an extremely odd day. He wasn’t used to odd.

It was going to become even stranger when he found what was hiding back in his shop. 

xxxXxxx

A/N: Please let me know what you think and if you are interested in seeing more! It would really mean a lot and thank you again.


	2. Chapter 2

A/N: I wrote this the same day as the first chapter and just man… I am on a roll! Sometimes good things come from sleep deprivation, right? 

Things definitely pick up in this chapter.

xxxXxxx

Aziraphale returned to his shop to eat the, of course, cold crepes; albeit still delicious. After he had devoured them, he took a much needed nap only to awake around nine o’clock at night. Some nap it was.

He sat up on the mattress and pressed his palms to his eyes, letting out a dejected sigh. It was the usual dejected sigh that occurs when any person first wakes up. It’s that moment of conscious consciousness when you realise who you are and where you are and the happy dreamlike state of sleep is gone within an instant. Unfortunately for Aziraphale, his reality was waking up to a room in complete darkness and on top of a shoddy, old mattress. 

Crawling off of the mattress to stand, Aziraphale fished his phone from his pocket. As he flipped it open to check for messages (he didn’t really know who he was hoping would reach out to him) he saw a number of voicemails from his father and one from his eldest brother. With a deep set frown, Aziraphale tossed the phone down onto the bed and immediately tried to erase the worries from his mind.

He exited the backroom as quickly as he could- it greatly depressed him being back there. At the very least, the front room filled with books to the ceiling in a chaotic organization was enough to bring a grin to his face. It wasn’t much, but it was something to him and that was all that mattered. Never really sure of exactly what he wanted to read, Aziraphale walked along the shelves with his fingers brushing the spines of each of the old books. Eventually he stopped and looked to see where his finger had landed. It was right on a 1917 edition of Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson.

It wasn’t one of his all time favourites, however, he felt that he needed something light-hearted at the moment. Something to truly transport himself into another world and away from his own.

Just as he had gripped the spine and began to pull it from the shelf, Aziraphale noticed something incredibly odd. With a tilt of his head, Aziraphale stared at the large, leather bound book that sat next to Treasure Island on the shelf. The shop wasn’t perfectly organized and he was willing to man up and admit that, but he also would admit that he was enough of a book nerd to know every single book that he kept in his collection. Not only the names of the books, but what the covers looked like as well. Sometimes he thought he may have photographic memory. All though, he was forgetful in many other areas of his life instead, so maybe books just took up most of the much needed space in his brain.

Withdrawing his hand from the spine of Treasure Island, Aziraphale grabbed the spine of the large book that had no marked title on the side. As he pulled it from the shelf, the sheer size of it became more apparent. With two hands he heaved it over to one of the tables nestled between the shelves and set it down as gently as possible. He didn’t want to break one of the tables he got on discount. 

Interest completely piqued, Aziraphale ran his hand over the smooth leather binding that was extremely old fashioned. It was obvious the book had been hand bound and not manufactured by machine. He wasn’t an expert, but it seemed to be of the same craftsmanship that most books in the 1600s were of. The book itself was a lovely shade of jade with gold lettering that read “The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter”. Aziraphale knew this was definitely not one of his books.

Growing up catholic he was told that no one truly possessed the ability to tell the future. Only God knew the future and no one else- especially not a human being. Being even sometimes skeptical of God’s existence, Aziraphale was definitely skeptical of people claiming to have the powers of divination at their disposal. In short, he didn’t collect such books because he didn’t believe in their validity. 

The last noticeable thing about the book was the large strap it had tightened around it. Apparent it was not made for the book, the strap was just a worn belt pulled within an inch of its life around it as if someone decided they didn’t want anyone at all to open it.

With his eyebrows knitted together, Aziraphale turned the book over and over again in his hands. Underneath the lamplight the book’s gold lettering seemed to dance off the cover to taunt him. He was getting a strange feeling that someone was in his ear telling him to open it. Logic quickly took a front seat in his brain, though. This was most definitely not his book and he hadn’t had a customer all day. Who had come into his shop just to leave a book? Not even leave a book, but stash it on a shelf. Maybe it was a prank from the landlord? The man was very strange after all.

“Curiouser and curiouser,” he muttered to himself. 

Deciding he wasn’t in the right state of mind to deal with this tom-foolery, Aziraphale quickly made his way to the back room. Next to the mattress he kept a trunk of his clothing. Without a second thought he threw open the trunk and stashed the book between his jumpers and then closed the damn thing up- hopefully to be forgotten. Something just told him not to leave the book out. 

He was beginning to wonder just how polluted London’s air was because he was getting a lot of strange intuitive thoughts lately. Aziraphale wasn’t the type of man that was very intune with such things as intuition and often it made him quite gullible. 

He glanced out the small window of the room towards the sky. It was such a shame, he couldn’t even see the stars here like he could in Tadfield. Aziraphale stepped closer to the window for a better look to see if he could spot one single star. It was at that moment that he noticed something was spilled around the windowsill. 

“What the devil?” he said as he swiped two fingers through the weird clumps of grain on his windowsill. 

It appeared to be salt. Who puts salt on windowsills?

Hesitantly, Aziraphale brought the two fingers to his lips. He poked his tongue out and indeed it was salt. Making a face, Aziraphale wiped the rest of the salt off onto his pants.

He shook his head and decided it was time to go read Treasure Island before he discovered another odd occurrence. At this point he didn’t think he could take much more.

xxxXxxx

Down the street in Baked Devices, the owner was pacing back and forth after the shop had just closed. Nearby to her sat her partner in one of the stools trying to console her whilst not getting in the way of her pacing.

He spoke very calmly, much like one would to an aggravated animal, “I’m sure it’s not that big of a deal, don’t worry about it. Everything will work ou-”

She rounded on him an instant and he shrunk back. “Not that big of a deal, Newt? My ancestors have been searching for this book for centuries and I finally get a lead on where it is and it’s not a big deal? How could you say that! The book contains everything and I mean everything. I only know half of what’s inside from when it was shortly in the care of my great-great-great grandmother. The damn book has a mind of its own!” She paused for a short breath. 

She stalked over to Newt and took his hands in hers. “If we don’t get the book as soon as possible it will disappear again. It has a protection spell so no one can find it and I’m done with spending my life searching for it just to keep it safe.”

“Well, uh, Anathema… maybe it’s best safe when no one knows where it is,” he tried to supply helpfully.

Anathema glowered at him. “Not when every supernatural being under the sun is searching too and knows it’s in this area! Haven’t you seen all the strange characters around lately?”

Newt’s eyebrows knitted together, “Stranger than usual? This is London.”

Anathema loved her fiance dearly, but he was not very good at all when it came to perceiving anything at all. 

“What about the man with the red hair today,” she crossed her arms over her chest.

“What about him?” Newt pushed his glasses back up the bridge of his nose.

The black haired woman threw her hands into the air with a scoff, “Newt, that was a demon!”

He blinked with a frown, “A demon likes blueberry crepes?”

She shook her head, pinching the bridge of her nose where it settled between her eyes. Deep down, she knew she couldn’t blame Newt for not being able to understand. He couldn’t see people’s auras like she could. Demons had a distinct black aura following them wherever they went and the red haired man who she had also met before on one occasion was swamped in a constant inky blackness. “I can’t explain this to you right now. I have to go out and look for the book before it disappears again, it’s the only chance we have before someone else finds it.

xxxXxxx

It was the middle of the night when Aziraphale awoke again on his mattress. Being someone that loved to sleep, he couldn’t identify why he was so sleepless. The stress was most definitely getting to him. Normally he would have tried to go back to sleep, but at this point it felt useless. Might as well get an extra early start to his day. 

Aziraphale got up and quickly dressed himself in khakis and a light blue jumper that happened to be his favourite. He slipped his pair of round glasses onto his face and made his way for the restroom. Splashing some cold water onto his face should wake him up, right? Without flicking on the dim bathroom light, Aziraphale stood in the square that was his bathroom. He turned the faucet on and made a cup shape with his hands under the water to fill his palms. Running his hands over his eyes underneath his glasses, Aziraphale wiped away all of the grime on his face the best he could. It would have been more effective if he had taken his glasses off, but it was what it was now. 

The light haired man didn’t switch the light on until he went to brush his teeth. 

Everything froze.

With wide eyes that were mostly whites, Aziraphale stared at the mirror in front of him. 

Scratched into the mirror in jagged handwriting read “protect it”. 

Either he was seeing things or someone had broken into his shop. 

“Oh, dear,” he backed against the wall that was already right behind him. Brushing his teeth completely forgotten, Aziraphale tore out of the restroom and out of the back room. The young man was not athletic at all, some may even call him stout, but without his wits about him he was running up to his landlord’s flat like a triathlete. 

With the shock he forgot to remember the little tidbit that it was four in the morning.

Aziraphale rasped on the door firmly without trying to appear panicked. However, he was extremely panicked. He never had to deal with break-ins in Tadfield.

After a short wait the door flew open and a rough looking man appeared in the doorway with a grim face like an English bulldog and his body clothed in red, flannel pajamas. “What the devil do you want, laddie? D’you have any idea what time it is!”

As Aziraphale stared into the eyes of his landlord, only being able to dumbly blink. It did occur to him what time it was.

“Well- I… I’m sorry, dear fellow, but there is something quite urgent I need to discuss with you,” he swallowed, trying not to seem like a mad man.

The landlord’s eyes narrowed impossibly further and his nostrils flared like he was about to spit fire, “What couldn’t wait ‘til the morning?”

“I think someone may have broken in to my shop! I’ve felt watched all day and I-I come home to find things in my shop that aren’t my own, salt on the windows, and my mirror scratched to hell. I don’t know what to make of it,” Aziraphale forced out in one breath, raking a clammy hand through his light locks of hair.

The landlord glared at him for a long time before he finally grumbled, “Sounds like witches, laddie. Best keep your doors locked.”

With that the landlord quickly shut and locked his own door, leaving Aziraphale standing there unsure of what to do.

Was everyone in London this insane and unreasonable.

He wanted answers! A rational explanation of some sort and there was nothing. He stomped back down the stairs to his shop.

What could he do now. It wasn’t like he had money to set up security cameras. 

Sighing, Aziraphale ran his hands over his face in an attempt to smooth out the soon to be stress wrinkles all over his face.

It was then that an equally insane idea popped into his head like a daisy. The book that he had found claimed to have prophecies… Now he knew it was extremely impossible, but what if this was all some sort of conspiracy. Maybe he was being punked or it was the neighbourhood watch’s way of spooking him out of the area.

Against his better judgement, Aziraphale cautiously entered the back room of his shop. He stalked over to the trunk that bore his initials (just like in Harry Potter) and heaved open the lid. Digging through his jumpers, he soon found the book.

Sitting criss-cross on the ground with his back to the trunk, Aziraphale stared down at the large book in his hands.

“Protect it” the mirror had said. Protect this? From what?

Trailing his well-manicured hand down the cover, his fingers stopped right at the buckle of the belt. Did he really dare to open such a book that was giving off threatening signals. Well, whatever was going on he wanted it to end and for someone to pay for his blasted mirror.

Slowly, Aziraphale undid the belt buckle with a few clinks until he popped the metal rod out of the hole. Carefully because he was aware of how old the book was just by the look of it, Aziraphale pulled the strap out from under the buckle until the belt was lying across his lap.

Swallowing the lump in his throat and quelling the butterflies in his tummy, Aziraphale gently opened the cover of the book. 

Just as he was reading the mandatory title page of the book consisting of the author and publishers’ names, Aziraphale heard a loud knock at the front door of the shop. His head shot up and alarm bells sounded off. This was getting all too eerie for him.

He waited in dead silence with his heart hammering away in his ear drums, his grip tight and sweaty around the book.

The knock came again, a little louder this time. 

And then again. 

Aziraphale sprung into action, throwing the book underneath his mattress and searching for anything around that he could use as a weapon. Finding a large, black umbrella, Aziraphale grabbed its curved handle and brandished it like a sword as he stepped into the shop front.

With heavy breathing and careful footing, he eased himself closer and closer to the door that was still being bombarded. 

Licking his lips and swallowing his fear once more, Aziraphale slowly turned the knob of the door with his “sword” held high, ready to strike.

“Who is there?!” He threw the door open and just as he was about to slam down the metal rod onto the door assailant’s head, his arm came to a complete stop. “O-oh, it’s you.”

In the doorway stood a very shocked looking Anathema. Her dark eyes wide behind her round glasses. She seemed to be in shock that she was about to be hit over the head with an umbrella and also because she was in shock. Nothing seemed to surprise her.

“Mr. Fell…?” She took a step back, then immediately regained her composure. She adjusted her coat at the hem and cleared her throat. It was then that Aziraphale noticed a strange sort of crystal thing hanging on the end of a string in the baker lady’s hand.

Her eyes flicked from his eyes to her hand and then back to his. She hid the pendulum behind her back, “Mr. Fell, I didn’t know this was your establishment.” She put on a sickly sweet smile that Aziraphale could only blink at as he lowered his umbrella.

“I’m sorry, I know it is early, but you see…,” she trailed off with knitted brows. As if she was coming up with some sort of lie.

Even though Aziraphale was very gullible and was somewhat aware of it, he tried to think the best of everyone. Except for that crepe thief.

“Newt- the man that gave you your crepes yesterday- he spilled honey all over one of my cookbooks,” she placed her smile easily upon her face, “I was really hoping to have a look around your store to see if I could find a good cookbook here to replace the lost recipes. Do you think you have any cookbooks?”

Aziraphale blinked before stepping aside and graciously letting her enter. “I believe I do somewhere around here, sorry about that- my nerves are a bit shot today. Let me have a quick peek,” he said, immediately in the mode of a bookshop owner. He was running through the isles trying to find where he had put the damned cookbooks.

Once he was out of sight, Anathema started a search of her own. She knew the signal had pointed to this store. She just knew it- her intuition was never wrong before. Muttering to herself, she skimmed the rows of books on each shelf. The book was here she could sense it with every fiber of her being. But where was it hidden? Was Mr. Fell hiding it? He had given quite the reaction to her turning up at his doorstep. If Mr. Fell had found it, he was most likely definitely being watched and that would explain where the paranoia was stemming from.

“You know,” Aziraphale spoke up from across the store, “you never gave me your name, my dear.”

“Anathema Device,” she supplied helpfully as she continued her search.

Aziraphale made an “ah-ha” noise as he finally located the cookbooks. “Ms. Device I have found them.” He peeked around the side of the shelves only to find Anathema desperately searching through his books.

That seemed a bit odd.

Spinning on her heel, she plastered on another polite smile. “Please, call me ‘Anathema’,” she offered as she approached him. 

“Then call me ‘Aziraphale’,” he chirped as he pulled out a large, white book, “This is the biggest cookbook I have. I hope it contains the recipes you’re missing,” he said with a touch of sympathy in his voice as he handed over the book that had a usual cliche cover that cookbooks always possess. 

Anathema smiled graciously and accepted the book from him. However, instead of studying the contents of the book, she was staring very intently at him as if searching for her lost recipes in his soul. “How much is it, then, Aziraphale?” 

In actuality, she was staring at him to see his aura. Contrary to demons, angels have a bright white aura. It became greyer the closer they were to falling. With a name like Aziraphale, she wanted to be sure she wasn’t dealing with an angel of types. Luckily, she found his aura to be a normal yellow with tinges of blue in the middle.

“Eight pounds, please,” he said, none the wiser to what was going on in the woman’s head. Being a kind soul, he of course lowered the price of the cookbook drastically to help out a customer desperately in need of a new cookbook. He quite liked her crepes and it would be a shame if her business faltered because he decided to be too stingy with his prices.

Nevertheless, she handed him a tenner and told him to keep the change. With another endearing smile she headed to the door, “Thank you again, Aziraphale.”

She left and as soon as the door was closed firmly behind her, she let out an obscenity into the London street that was just waking.

Aziraphale gave a small sigh of relief, glad it was just a friendly baker knocking at his door and not some symbolic entity of death from an Edgar Allan Poe poem…

xxxXxxx

He spent the rest of his morning cleaning up the shop a bit more as he went. Somehow, the shelves became impeccably dusty quite rapidly- even with constant attention. Once the shelves were dusted and the floor swept, he stocked some more books away to their new homes. It had felt rather good helping out Anathema. Possibly this is what being a bookshop owner was about. Helping people to find what they need and seeing their faces light up when he did them a good service. Just as the Lemony Snicket books said, “in every library there is a single book that can answer the question that burns like a fire in the mind.”

It was then that he remembered what he had been doing prior to Anathema knocking at his door. The prophecy book…

The one he had been looking through to get his own answers.

Hurriedly, Aziraphale stalked into the back room and lifted up the mattress. The book was gone.

Then he checked the bathroom mirror. The scratches were gone as well.

He blinked, absently scratching his temple. Had it been a dream or a stress induced illusion? Whatever it was, he was glad it was over. 

Spirits lifted with a cheerful grin, Aziraphale grabbed his cream colored coat and left the shop for his lunch break. Simpering to himself, he thought of Anathema’s bakery and at once wanted to check on how the new cookbook was working for her. Pleasantly strolling along, Aziraphale approached Baked Devices without any feelings of being watched creeping up his back at all.

Things were slowly but surely starting to look up. He just had to keep his wits about him and everything would be all right in the end. No matter how he looked at it, at least he was away from his father. He knew there would be a day where his father would find him and drag him back to Tadfield by his ear or the foot of his corpse, but hopefully it would never come to that. Afterall, Aziraphale’s mother had eluded his father all these years. 

Absentmindedly, Aziraphale rubbed the small pink scars that had healed years ago atop his left hand’s knuckles.

He stepped into the small, but always full bakeshop. Aziraphale approached the counter to find the man referred to as “Newt” playing with the till. Whatever he was doing with the till, it seemed to be making the state of it worse. The poor machine kept making error noises with Newt’s incessant tampering. 

“Erm, hello there,” Aziraphale greeted cheerfully. 

Newt’s head snapped up. The man not much younger than himself by the looks of it adjusted his glasses, “Oh, hello, sorry. I just seem to be having a bit of a struggle with the till.”

“I’m not very good with electronics either; it’s all right,” Aziraphale said, trying to somehow comfort the struggling cashier.

“I’m a computer engineer.”

“Oh.”

Thankfully, Anathema appeared from the back to save him. “Newt, stop messing with the register. Hello, Aziraphale, what can I get you?”

Regaining his smile, Aziraphale replied, “Oh, uhm some chocolate biscuits, please. I was also wondering how the cookbook you purchased was working out for you?”

“You bought a cookbook? But you know all of the recipes by heart-” Newt glanced to Anathema with a contemplating frown.

She hushed him with a kind, but pointed smile, “Not all of them. Anyways, chocolate biscuits coming up. On the house,” she quickly added.

xxxXxxx

The demon known as Crowley sat draped across a bench in St. James park with an air of grand disinterest to him.

“Am I boring you, Crowley?” A demon standing over him seethed with his fists clenched at his sides. If Crowley wasn’t so useful, the firm would have drowned him in holy water eons ago.

Letting out a dramatic sigh, Crowley sat up. “Not a chance, Hastur. I’m hanging on your every word, scout’s honour,” he did a strange cross over his heart. “I’m just not so sure what is so important about this book.”

“How can you not understand? It holds the future that only She knows. If we get the book we will know the outcome of the great war and if it is not in our Master’s favor then we can prevent it from happening that way. It is the key to victory, Crowley,” Hastur explained much like he had a royal stick of importance rammed up his arse.

“Right, right,” Crowley nodded. “But wouldn’t it be easier just to have the damn war instead of book hunting whilst the enemy grows stronger?”

Hastur glared, bearing his teeth like a great beast (which a duke of Hell technically was). “We need to ensure that we win. Just find the blessed book or you will be more than discorporated and that I can promise,” he sneered one last time as he stalked away with a weird staggered walk that made Crowley truly wonder if there were a stick up there.

Clenching his jaw, Crowley picked up the black manilla folder that Hastur had given him. He opened it and slipped out the documents containing the suspected whereabouts of the book and who may be hiding it.

Imagine his surprise when he found a grainy looking picture (honestly even with advanced technology demons still found a way to take the worst photographs) of the man named after an angel. The very same young man that had followed him a good block just for some blueberry crepes. 

A large smirk split across Crowley’s face.

Maybe he could enjoy himself a little.

xxxXxxx

A/N: I really hope you guys liked this chapter. Let me know what you think in the comments if you like. Also I really threw in the literary references here, sorry I got carried away lol.


	3. Chapter 3

A/N: Another chapteeeeer. Hope you like it!

xxxXxxx

With an audible sigh, Aziraphale locked up the front door of his shop after another day’s hard work. Much to his luck, week two of owning “A to Z Books” was going a lot better than the first week had. Aziraphlae found that he had earned enough to pay all of the bills that were flooding endlessly through his mail slot each day and a little extra to get by. Even better, Aziraphale hadn’t noticed any more odd occurrences in his shop. “The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter” had not made another appearance as of yet.

Over all his spirits were high. The forever optimistic voice in his head told him not to think about what would happen when everything stopped going so well. 

Humming a cheery tune to himself, Aziraphale stared down at the extra pound notes that he had in his hand. His eyes were practically sparkling staring down at the few slips of paper. What should he do with the extra money? Logically he knew that he should store the money away for emergencies, but it was only a couple of notes. Surely he should reward himself for a job well done, right? That was supposed to be the benefits of owning a place. 

Deciding he did in fact earn some self indulgence, Aziraphale hummed an upbeat tune to himself and left to his back room. Entering the room, he opened up his trunk to find his best pair of oxfords, khakis, and a cable knit jumper that was the same colour as his hair. After his shoes were secured onto his feet with neat lacing and his trousers were slipped on as well, he pulled the jumper over his head with his fluffy white curls bouncing back into place. Before exiting the back room he checked the small bathroom mirror to see what he looked like.

Luckily the mirror was unmarked by any strange messages and he found himself looking quite smart. He slid on his glasses and gave himself a small smile of encouragement, “Let’s go and enjoy ourselves, old fellow.”

With that he quickly left his shop and found himself on the streets of London. The nightlife of London definitely rivaled anything that Tadfield ever had to offer. He gushed to himself in astonishment of all the people roaming the streets, the noises of joyous conversing and shouting, and the many smells of street vendor’s food. Aziraphale was unquestionably a wall flower and one of his favorite activities was people watching. Books were his absolute love, but he thought that the reason books were so special to him is because they were always- primarily- about people. Aziraphale just found other people’s lives so interesting to watch play out. That was exactly why he was on his way to see a local play that he had seen an advertisement for in The Times. Aziraphale had never been to one of Tower Theatre Company’s plays, but he was sure it would be beautiful. He would be seeing The Canterbury Tales; it was one of his favourite stories.

As he approached the architecturally grand building on Northwold Road, Aziraphale noticed something that made his pale cheeks quickly turn a dark shade of pink. Next to the theatre’s front doors, two men stood (by their outfits, Aziraphale deduced they were actors in tonight’s play) wrapped in each other’s arms. The taller of the pair seemed to be whispering sweet nothings into his partner’s ear. With a very flushed face indeed, Aziraphale quickly stalked by the couple and struggled to figure out he was pushing on the front doors that were obviously meant to be pulled in his embarrassed stupor. 

One of the men looked up from their own enchantment to chuckle at Aziraphale trying quite hard to get into the building. “It’s a pull door, love.”

Aziraphale stopped his struggling promptly to stare with wide eyes and tinted cheeks at the two men who were grinning at him. “Oh...thank you very much,” he mumbled, ducking his head down and rapidly pulling open the doors and slipping inside.

Still in a rather embarrassed daze, Aziraphale rushed to get his ticket and enter the auditorium to find his set seat. 

Moving to London he knew there were going to be many different walks of life, but he wasn’t expecting to find such an intimate moment of a homosexual nature. Everytime he witnessed anything remotely of that nature, he was put into a sheepish frenzy. Deep down he knew exactly why, but it was pushed down into the deepest part of his subconscious. On top of everything that had happened in his life, he didn’t want to think about it all right now.

Adjusting his round glasses, Aziraphale sat in his seat and waited for the play to begin. Thankfully since it was an amaetuer production the ticket didn't cost as much as he had anticipated. He had a five note left over and he was quite pleased with his disciplined spending habits. Most people his own age hadn’t a penny to their names, so he believed himself to be doing pretty well in life so far. Or as much as could be expected.

Soon the auditorium grew full and the seats next to him became occupied. Within thirty minutes, Aziraphale found himself completely enthralled into The Canterbury Tales. He didn’t feel pulled out of the narrative at all until the two men appeared on the stage, the ones he had seen outside. At once his face grew hot again. 

Completely developed in his own thoughts, Aziraphale didn’t notice the man sat next to him was staring at him quite intently through dark lenses. 

How could he notice the man when Aziraphale’s head was rushing with thoughts that he shouldn’t be having at all. They didn’t even feel like his own thoughts. It felt like something was forcing these thoughts into his head by the spoonful and it was becoming too much for his mind to handle. He felt as though his resolve was going to crack at any moment. 

In fact, Aziraphale was correct in his assumption that something was putting these thoughts into his head, but it was not something as it was more of “someone”.

As soon as the curtain dropped for intermission, Aziraphale was jumping out of his seat and speeding towards the restrooms. He didn’t know what was happening, it was like he couldn’t control his own mind. Aziraphale practically prided himself on self discipline (except when it came to food, of course), but with this he had impeccable discipline. On the daily he forced himself to be asexual in nature. But now his mind was absolutely betraying him.

Upon seeing the restroom was filled with men, Aziraphale ran out of it and to the outdoors. He skidded to a halt in front of an allyway and rounded the corner. He crumpled to the ground ignoring the fact he was going to ruin his nicest pair of trousers. Bringing his knees up to his chest, Aziraphale raked his hands through his curls in an attempt to calm himself down. 

“Oh, for Heaven’s sake, Aziraphale. Get it together,” he told himself firmly as he cast the thoughts away as best as he could.

Through his miniature melt down he didn’t notice the sound of footsteps approaching him from further down the alley.

“Fag?” A voice said.

Aziraphale’s head shot up with his face crimson at this point and a guarded face of stone, “I beg your pardon- oh,” he stopped himself. The voice belonged to a man standing over him with his hand outstretched towards him offering a cigarette. 

Normally, Aziraphale would never smoke let alone accept something from a stranger. But in that moment he really needed it.

Carefully, he took the offered cigarette from the man that he couldn’t see very well. The alleyway was quite dark and the man was covered from head to toe in a light blue suit, that much he could make out. Most people at this point would rush to exit an alley that contained a man dressed so supremely like he belonged to a mafia and a face hidden by shadows, but Aziraphale was often too trusting of others and at this moment his mind was on other things. Even though the circumstances were quite ominous, something about the man felt comforting. As if there were a certain warmth radiating from him. 

The man took a seat on the ground next to Aziraphale and held up a lighter, flicking it on. A flame burst to life as Aziraphale placed the end of the cigarette into the light. Once it was lit, the man clamped the lighter closed and pocketed it as Aziraphale took a much needed puff. Immediately he started coughing. 

With a laugh the man patted his back, “Not a smoker?”

Aziraphale shook his head as he recovered from his coughing fit. “No, not usually. Thank you, though.”

The man nodded beside him, “No problem. What are you doing out here?”

Aziraphale stared hard at a pebble on the ground as his head began to clear up a little. “I just felt a little… suffocated in there, I suppose.” He subconsciously trailed his fingers over the scars on his left hand. 

The man beside him hummed a bit. “Yeah, theatre isn’t my cup of tea.”

A cup of tea sounded very nice right about now.

As if reading his mind, the man said, “Would you like to go for one?”

Aziraphale glanced at the man from the corner of his eye, “Go for what?”

“A cup of tea,” the man clad in light blue replied. “My treat,” he added.

With downcast eyes, Aziraphale thought to himself. On one hand, a voice was telling him to run very far away and on the other side of the spectrum a very warm and coaxing voice told him to go have a free cup of tea to treat his nerves. 

“All right, that sounds quite nice if you’re sure about it,” Aziraphale replied with a small smile.

“I’m always sure,” the man replied as he helped Aziraphale to his feet.

The pair left to go get some chamomile tea, the play completely forgotten. Aziraphale indeed had a nice cup of tea and found that the man was very handsome. He had a strong build like no other and a masculine square jaw. Most noticeably, however, his eyes were a bright violet that Aziraphale found to be enthralling. The strangest thing about the man was the fact that he hadn’t ordered any tea for himself. Aziraphale wrote it off in his mind that maybe the man just wanted to buy him one and that made him flustered all over again.

As they enjoyed the rest of their night together, a pissed off demon watched from inside his vintage Bentley. “Fucking angel,” he growled to himself, punching the steering wheel. He had put so much effort into tormenting the human and right as he was about to move in the angel showed up and undid all of his hard work. 

Normally, Crowley would have still gone through with his plan, but even he did not fuck with archangels. 

xxxXxxx 

At the end of the night, the man who he learned was named “Gabriel” walked him back to his shop. With the nice warmth of chamomile tea in his stomach and the company of Gabriel, Aziraphale felt tired and in a complete haze of comfort. Something about the man just seemed to emit a blanket of soft hugs and all warm feelings; Aziraphale found himself enveloped in it.

As Aziraphale unlocked the door to his shop he thanked Gabriel graciously for the cup of tea. To his surprise when he stepped into the shop, Gabriel was following right behind him. Snapping out of his exhausted state, Aziraphale stopped in the doorway, blocking Gabriel entry.

Whilst he had thoroughly enjoyed his night with the nice man with beautiful violet eyes, he did not want anything more from the situation. “Erm…,” he stuttered, trying to find the correct words to politely tell Gabriel he wasn’t interested in continuing the night. 

“G-good night,” he said with a wide smile that was ultimately fake and slightly panicked. He reached for the door handle and began to close the door in front of him with Gabriel on the other side when the endearing man placed a firm hand against the door.

Without trying to seem like he was struggling, Aziraphale placed all of his force against the handle, trying to close it, but somehow just Gabriel’s palm alone was able to keep the door from budging an inch.

“Do you mind if I come in, Aziraphale?” He spoke with such a sickly sweet smile that didn’t reach his eyes as he kept the door in place.

Beginning to fill with dread about where this may be heading, Aziraphlae replied, “I do mind, actually.”

Ignoring him, Gabriel pushed the door open further against the weight of Aziraphale’s entire body- as if it barely took an ounce of effort- and took a step forward. Just as Gabriel’s loafer covered foot made its way past the doorway, he jumped back with a shout as if he had been burned.

His widened eyes shot from his foot that was sizzling and emitting smoke, to the doorway, and then to Aziraphale. Taking the man’s moment of surprise to his advantage, Aziraphale quickly slammed the door shut and locked every single lock (even the chain lock that didn’t really do much).

Panic shooting through every nerve in his body, Aziraphale ran to the front window and snapped the curtains shut.

“What to do, what to do,” Aziraphal repeated over and over to himself as he tugged at his curls. His heart felt like someone was squeezing it and trying to pry it out from his throat. 

What had just happened? One moment he was having a nice night out with an equally nice man and the next thing he knew he’s preventing a break in. Not only that but his house somehow burned a man’s foot.

Aziraphale ran to the backroom and threw open the door that was cracked open. Just as he stepped through, a large and heavy object fell from where it had been propped between the door and its frame. 

It thunked right against Aziraphale’s forehead, sending his glasses flying to the ground. With a gasp, he clamped a hand over the afflicted spot and felt a warm liquid begin to coat his hand. Blearily, he looked down at the floor to see what had hit him.

Lo and behold it was the nice and accurate prophecies of Agnes Nutter sitting on the ground giving off a menacing and angry energy as if a book could do such a thing.

“Oh, dear,” Aziraphale whimpered to himself as he felt a small trail of what he knew to be blood trickling down his face.

He stooped down to pick up the book that had a note on top of it that wasn’t there before. The note was made out of an old piece of parchment that he definitely did not own in the store.

He plucked the note from the cover and read it. The note said in neat, cursive script. “Ye mattress is not a good hiding spot, boy.”

It was then that the feeling of being watched crept back up his spine and it was there to stay.

xxxXxxx

The next morning, Aziraphale properly dressed the cut on his forehead and attempted to mentally pick himself up a bit. When he awoke, the book was still in the trunk with a new note stuck to it. This note wasn’t as threatening as the last at all. It was a simple list of instructions. 

It was a list of instructions for some sort of box that he was meant to bless in a sort of way for protection. Normally, Aziraphale would have stayed quite skeptical about the whole situation. In fact, inwardly he was having a nervous breakdown with everything that had been occuring. But if anything, Aziraphale knew he was extremely mentally strong. Anyone that may be considered even remotely normal would have called it quits and ran back to their hometown away from all the strange occurrences going on. 

But at this point, Aziraphale had accepted the slightest bit that this was his new reality. For heaven’s sake, if a book falls on your head with a threatening note and then the next morning it provides a list of instructions- then you follow to the absolute ‘T’ what that book is telling you to do with relatively no questions asked.

He stayed optimistic by telling himself that at the very least the book hadn’t broken his glasses, or taken out his eye, and it was Saturday so he didn’t have to open up shop and act like he wasn’t on the verge of a neurotic fit.

Pretending the entire situation was sane to keep himself sane, Aziraphale read the list of instructions.

“Find ye a wooden box made from tree of oak  
A cloth of violet  
A Device to bless the wood  
Keep it in the home of sacred ground  
Guard yeself well with the serpent”

Aziraphale’s brows knitted together. He was quite clever, if he did say so himself, but some parts of the note didn’t make sense. The first two instructions seemed simple enough, but the rest didn’t understand. What device, what sacred ground, and guard himself with a snake? Aziraphale wasn’t fond of snakes; they creeped him out.

It was then that Aziraphale finally decided to really take a peek into this book. Maybe the answers were there.

Once he opened the book everything changed for the worst. 

xxxXxxx

Aziraphale sat in Baked Devices in the cafe section a few hours later. Staring out the window, he calmly sipped his earl grey tea as he was deep in thought. Next to him on the counter sat a wooden box made from oak and a violet cloth that he had bought from the closest market. Being so deep into thought, he didn’t notice that Anathema was staring at him from across the bakery.

Newt looked from Anathema to Aziraphale. He leant over to his partner, “Love, you’re staring at our customer.”

She sighed, looking away. “I know. It’s just... I have this weird feeling,” she told him.

Aziraphale’s aura was quite different today. It was completely blue- troubled in fact. The aura was fitting to the solemn look on the soft man’s face. Even from where she stood, she could see the bags under the young man’s eyes- insinuating he had a sleepless night. 

“Hold down the fort, Newt,” she sighed as she slipped off her apron and stalked over to him. 

She took a seat next to him and lightly put her hand on his shoulder, “Aziraphale?” She spoke very softly.

His head shot up, clear heart-gripping worry evident on his face. At seeing who it was, he immediately stilled. “Oh, hello, Anathema.”

She smiled gently, “Hello.” Anathema glanced at the items next to him and instantly knew what they were for just by looking at them. Oak and a violet cloth were meant to safeguard anything from spirits. He must have found the book. There was no doubt in her mind now.

“Is something wrong, Aziraphale?” She asked.

He shook his head, “No, I’m all right, my dear. Thank you for asking, though.”

It was at that precise moment Anathema decided to be bold and not beat around the bush any longer.

“Did you read the book?”

xxxXxxx

Crowley watched with an irritated twitch of his eye as he saw Anathema approach Aziraphale through the bakery window. The damned witch had put salt around the building- forbidding him entry unless he wished to be burnt. 

The demon had noticed as well that Aziraphale had an oak box and purple cloth next to him. Aziraphale most definitely had the book. 

The prior night, Crowley was forced to sit through half of that blasted theatre production, sticking tempting thoughts into Aziraphale’s head the entire time. It must have worked because Aziraphale didn’t even become aware to the fact Crowley was sat next to him for over the entire hour he was there. He could tell that he had the human so close to breaking (and breaking meant he would become vulnerable to Crowley’s whims), but once intermission was announced the young man was racing out of theatre. The demon had lost track of him and by the time he relocated the idiot, Gabriel was sitting at the human’s side.

As if he didn’t have enough problems already- because of Gabriel’s little incident with the doorway of the bookshop, every supernatural being in the area now knew that the bookshop was somehow sacred ground. Demons weren’t the brightest of things, but even they could put two and two together that if the bookshop was sacred ground it most definitely meant it was safe-guarding something. 

They all knew the human had the book. 

As the angels in London were concocting a well thought out plan to get Aziraphale to hand over the book, the demons were already planning one of their own to tear Aziraphale limb from limb to obtain it.

Time was running out and Crowley could no longer stay in the shadows. He had to be the one to get the book or there would be literal Hell to pay.

The serpent began to devise a plan of his own. 

xxxXxxx

A/N: I really made Aziraphale suffer some trauma in this chapter. I feel sort of bad about it, but ‘kill your darlings’, right? Anyways, I sincerely hope you enjoyed this chapter. I’m getting them out really fast, but I am passionate about this story. I finally have the introduction section out of the way and shit just blows up from here. Also next chapter will have a lot more Crowley with Aziraphale scenes in it.


	4. Chapter 4

A/N: This chapter took me quite a while, but it’s almost 7,500 words so that’s probably why. I really hope that you enjoy it, though, cause I worked hard on it and I like where it’s headed. 

Thank you and have a fun time reading!

xxxXxxx

Crowley sat in his 1926 Bentely, parked across the street from “A. to Z. Books”. His snake-like eyes watched the human target being led down the street by the witch over the rim of his sunglasses. He grunted to himself.

The demon was getting thoroughly frustrated with this whole cock up of a day. 

It was like Hell didn’t value his precious time, or what was left of it at least. He groaned to himself. Of course they didn’t care, but he most certainly did. There were a number of ways Crowley would have enjoyed spending his morning. For instance, sleeping in was definitely one of them. Who knows what he could have done with his free time. Maybe bought a couple more house plants to traumatise, polish his beloved Bentley (not a euphemism), or design his own plan to win Armageddon that would be more foolproof than any book written in the seventh century could fathom.

But no. The old firm was hell-bent on getting this blasted book. 

“Shit, shit, shit,” Crowley hissed to himself, watching as the human was seized by the elbow by none other than Hastur. The entire street was practically crawling with demons and angels. Getting the human alone in order to obtain the book was looking like a more and more difficult task by the very second. At least they were so focused on the task at hand that none of them even realised Crowley was there.

Instead of spending his last few days as he pleased, the demon had spent it trying to formulate a way to get the book away from the human. It was incredibly difficult, however, considering wherever the human went happened to be protected from beings like him such as the bookshop and now the bakery. Currently, the human was following the witch around and Crowley truly did not feel like being exorcised and having to complete the paperwork that came with being exorcised. Needless to say, he was keeping his distance. In the meantime he would think of his brilliant plan to get the book. What he would do when he had the book, he didn’t know yet. 

“Need a plan. I have a plan. Get the book- that’s a plan. The best plan,” he muttered to himself as he drummed on his steering wheel along to Queen playing in the background.

He did, in fact, not have a plan. 

Crowley worked best under pressure, but this was quite extreme pressure. 

On one hand, the answer was simple. He could… kidnap the human and torture him for the book. But that sounded entirely too messy and felt too much like a big cinematic film cliche that could either be of the category of horror or BDSM. On the other hand, he could just use his supernatural abilities and force the human to give him the book and be on his way. The witch would make that difficult, however, and Crowley enjoyed adding a little finesse to his work.

The demon was pulled from his thoughts when he saw the witch tug the human into the shop and slam the door behind them. There was no use just sitting here anymore. He couldn’t get into the shop and for now the witch was guarding the human like a loyal guard dog. 

At this point, Crowley was beyond irritated. How did he always wind up in these situations where he felt so incredibly pinched and pressured?

With a groan, he threw the car into gear. Not bothering to check for oncoming cars, Crowley floored out of his space and onto the road. A car was, in fact, passing by when he backed out of the space, earning a lot of honking and a couple curses his way.

As if it were second nature, Crowley threw up his pointer and middle finger into his rearview mirror at the offended driver as he sped away, “Oh, get stuffed.”

xxxXxxx

Amongst London’s already bustling streets, there was one street in particular that was seeing a peculiar amount of activity. Most streets in London are always littered with people, but this street alone was brimming with people doing all sorts of different activities such as busking, street vending, or just plainly feeding the birds. Aziraphale did find it a little abnormal that the street he lived on for more than a week was now busier than ever (it was usually just a steady flow of busy), but that observation was immensely outweighed by the fact that some of the people were plain strange looking. He wasn’t rude, but their faces were in fact different.

Some of the people had the darkest of brown eyes he has ever seen, scars all over their faces and along their body, and most just seemed down right off putting. They seemed like they didn’t belong either. They all shuffled about and appeared to be separate from the rest of the world around them. On the other side of the bizarre spectrum, there was a good amount of people dressed in light suits. Seeing people dressed in suits in London wasn’t abnormal, but they were all huddled together across the street with faces of stone as they watched over the rest of the block. Something about them idly reminded him of Gabriel.

Anathema grabbed Aziraphale by the wrist firmly and dragged him hurriedly down the street towards the corner bookshop. He wasn’t completely certain what the matter was, but whatever it was- Anathema seemed to have a great sense of urgency coursing through her. Her eyes were narrowed to slits behind her glasses, her grip was hurting his wrist a bit, and she was walking at practically a runner’s pace.

“How much of the book did you read,” she said quietly, over the rest of the street noise he could barely understand what she had said to him.

“Only the first couple of pages,” he admitted as he tried to keep up with her pace, not wanting to stumble and fall. “I didn’t understand most of it.”

As soon as the sentence had left his mouth, a rough looking woman with a creepy smirk stepped in front of Aziraphale’s way. He skidded to a stop, narrowly escaping running her over. 

“Could I interest you in some fine wares?” She gestured to her cart full of odds and ends. Everything from jewelry to cutlery. 

Anathema huffed haughtily at the sight of the woman and tugged on Aziraphale’s wrist especially hard as he declined to the woman who was trying to take the oak box and cloth that he was carrying in his other hand, “No, thank you, madam.”

Aziraphale emitted a small yelp as he was dragged down the street at an even quicker pace. “Anathema, what is the matter? Why are we walking so fast?” He asked, not being able to help the heavy breathing that came with it. He was admittedly, out of shape. 

“I’ll explain when we’re in your store, just keep walking,” she replied with a determined demeanor, weaving in between the crowd like she was an expert at it whilst Aziraphale almost ran into every second person.

Doing as he was told, Aziraphale focused on dodging every person that grabbed at him until a particular firm grip grasped him by the elbow and brought him to another halt. Dumbfoundedly, Aziraphale glanced up into the eyes of a man who bore no regular eyes. The man’s eyes were inky black pits of nothingness and they were staring right through him. Feeling pinned to the spot, Aziraphale felt a great sense of all of the world’s anguish wash over him from the man’s eyes. The man sneered at him before roughly letting go, “Be careful of where you’re going.”

With that Anathema pulled Aziraphale into the bookshop and quickly slammed the door shut behind them after telling the man to back off. As Aziraphale took a dazed seat in one of the many torn up arm chairs that were around the bookshop, Anathema was running around locking every lock in the shop and drawing the curtains over every window.

“What is going on…?” Aziraphale asked slowly, placing a clammy hand to the back of his neck as an attempt to soothe himself as he set down the oak box and cloth on the table beside him. He felt vaguely nauseous and a little faint. 

“They know you have the book and they’re coming for it,” she explained, still at her task of making sure the shop was completely secure. 

“Who knows?” He stared up at her, his clear blue eyes muddled with worry.

She stopped her fidgeting to spare a sympathizing glance to the man that was all wide eyes and tousled curls at the moment. Steadily, she replied, “Heaven and Hell, Aziraphale.”

At that, Aziraphale stood up at once and strode to the backroom with a small smile plastered onto his face as if he was not just told that angelic and demonic entities were after him. That explained all of the strange people on the street staring and grabbing at him. In the moment, he had written it off as them enjoying his new cologne. “I can’t cope with this without some hot cocoa, would you like some?”

She followed after him incredulously, “You’re asking me if I want hot chocolate when I just told you that your life is basically in danger?”

Aziraphale stooped down in front of his kitchenette and retrieved a tin of hot cocoa powder from below. With the tin in hand, he stood and began filling the kettle with some water from the tap. Once it was filled enough for about three cups, he placed it atop the stove and switched it on. Just as the tasks for making the cocoa were completed, Anathema stepped through the backroom door.

“Yes, I’m asking if you would like some cocoa, dear,” Aziraphale confirmed as he stared at the kettle. His blue eyes watched the flames lick at the underside of the kettle. 

She shook her head, “I’m fine, thank you. But didn’t you hear what I said?”

“Of course I did. Are you looking for a particular reaction?” he mumbled and took the kettle off of the heat when it began to whistle and bellow out steam. “I’m just trying to wrap my mind around this, Anathema. It’s a lot to take in.”

She knew she should be a little more tactful with how she was breaking the news, but there was no time for trivial things such as taking into account the fragile nature of the human mind when it came to imminent Armageddon. “Aziraphale, where is the book?”

He reached above the kitchenette into one of the above cupboards and took out a white mug with an angel wing for a handle. It was a gift from his mother. She had mailed it to him on his sixteenth birthday. It didn’t have a card or any sort of indication that it was from her attached to it other than a stamp from Germany and the belief that his mother was still out there caring about him. One of the few things that he could remember about his mother was that she had called him and his brothers’ her little angels. 

“It’s in my trunk over there along with the notes,” he replied as he started to spoon a couple lumps of cocoa into each mug and then stirring up the mixture.

“Notes?” She muttered to herself. She circled around to the leather trunk in the corner and heaved open the large lid. Digging around as respectfully as possible through Aziraphale’s garments, she retrieved the big book along with two small notes made of old parchment. As she lifted it from the trunk, Anathema could practically feel the power that was radiating off of the book. The only way she could describe it in words was it was like the book was heating up beneath her hands and giving off an aura of... smugness. The book knew it was all knowing almost as much as God herself. Carefully, Anathema set the book down and read the two notes.

Having read the notes, Anathema grinned to herself. They reinforced her mother’s theory that the book had Agnes’ soul living within it. One thing was for sure, the book had a mind of its own.

“I still can’t believe the book has stayed here for so long,” she mumbled, running her hands along its binding to truly take it in.

Aziraphale carefully sipped at his hot cocoa. He stared at her from over the rim of the mug, “What do you mean?”

Not tearing her eyes away from the book in fear that it would disappear if she looked away, she replied, “This book- it has a mind of its own, Aziraphale. My family has been searching for it for centuries in order to protect it. Every time someone was actually able to find it, the book would soon disappear again. Because of this, no one knows what completely is inside other than the fact it contains completely true prophecies about the future.”

Mulling this over, Aziraphale walked over to Anathema and took a seat next to her on the ground with cocoa in hand. “How did the book come to be then?”

Anathema’s eyes sparkled as if Aziraphale had just proposed to her. The story she was about to share with him was one of her utmost favourites of stories. It was practically ingrained in her from being rehearsed for years in her head and having been passed down for generations in her family. “Agnes Nutter is my ancestor. She was a true witch by every definition and she was the last witch to be burned at the stake in England. Agnes had a true gift for seeing the future, Aziraphale. It’s still unclear how she was capable of such abilities of divination, but some say it was a gift from God. Every vision she ever had she wrote down in this book,” Anathema held the book up to Aziraphale as if showing off a fossil at a museum tour. 

“Agnes must have known how dangerous the book could be if it fell into the wrong hands so she placed a protection spell on it. After her death, her daughter had it for a little bit, but it disappeared soon after. Every time the book feels threatened- it disappears. The last person to have it was my great-great grandmother. My mother believes that Agnes’s soul lives on in the book and that would certainly explain the little notes it left you,” Anathema grinned, but it soon dropped. “Aziraphale, this book has to be protected at all costs. It holds the secrets to the end of the world and beyond. If an angel or demon had it they would know exactly how Armageddon would play out and it’s going to occur within this century.”

“Should we not just give it to an angel, then? I mean, angels would do the right thing with it,” Aziraphale tried to supply helpfully.

Anathema shook her head. “Angels aren’t always good, Aziraphale. No one is supposed to know the future, we have to keep the secrets in the book safe from both sides. God’s plan is called ineffable for a reason.”

“Ineffable,” Aziraphale mumbled to himself.

Anathema nodded. “I’m not sure why the book chose you, but we have to keep it safe. The note says ‘get a Device to bless the wood’. Aziraphale, I think it means me. The book has never stuck around anywhere for this long, let alone make contact with someone. I know it sounds crazy and insane, but I think Agnes is entrusting you with the book. For occult’s sake, your house is suddenly sacred ground.”

Aziraphale blinked, “Sacred ground?”

“This entire shop has a protective aura around it that just appeared yesterday. I never noticed anything strange about this building before, but as soon as we were inside it was this overwhelming feeling like a warm blanket. Somehow it’s protected from supernatural entities and- no offense- I know you’re not capable of putting a protection spell over it. It must have been the book. I’m sure there is salt on the windows by now.”

Idly, Aziraphale glanced around the bookshop. Was that why it had burned Gabriel? Should he mention Gabriel to Anathema? He knew he probably should, but he found the whole situation too embarrassing to share at the moment. Plus, he didn’t want to worry her with the fact that he could be exceptionally gullible. 

“Are you a witch too, Anathema?” He asked carefully.

“I’m… an occultist- ok, yes, I’m a witch. But that’s besides the point, Aziraphale. I think you’re supposed to guard the book,” Anathema gestured to the note. “It’s reaching out to you.”

“Can’t you just take the book?” 

She shook her head. “It says get a Device to bless the wood. Not give the book to a Device. As much as I have waited my entire life to find the book… I don’t think I’m meant to have it. I think I’m just meant to help you and I bet there is a prophecy about this moment in here.”

Staring hard at her, Aziraphale said quietly, “Show me.”

“All right,” Anathema replied, opening up the book and browsing through the thousands and thousands of prophecies. It took a couple of minutes, so Aziraphale just sat and enjoyed his cocoa. Finally, Anathema located it.

“Prophecy 1042,” she read aloud, showing it to Aziraphale, “The fussy young male will be assisted by the Device and they shall find refuge for theeselves and my book in a room full of many men’s books.” 

Aziraphale glared down at the book as he took another sip of his cocoa. The book was a traitor.

“I still don’t think myself capable,” he sighed as he gazed at his companion pleadingly.

“And why not?” Anathema asked, crossing her arms over her chest.

“Well,” he thought for a moment before he decided on saying quite lamely, “well, I’m soft.”

Anathema shot him an unamused look, “Aziraphale, whether you like it or not Agnes is leaving her book with you and I have a moral obligation not to take it off your hands. Moreso, you have a moral obligation to protect it.”

Sighing, Aziraphale carefully set his half full mug down on the wooden floor. “I just don’t understand why it has to be me.”

She shrugged, “I’m sure it’s written in the book somewhere. You’ll probably feel better if you educate yourself with it. It’s getting late, though, and I think for now we should just focus on properly protecting this thing,” she gestured to the book.

Anathema picked the piece of parchment back up from the floor. “I’ve blessed tarot cards and other divination tools before, I’m sure it will be the same as that. I’m not sure what it means by guard yourself with a serpent, though. Ever come across a snake that has followed you?”

Aziraphale shook his head with a thoughtful glint in his eyes, “No, no such thing has occurred.”

She hummed. “Ok, we’ll put that off for now, then. Would you mind getting the box and cloth?” She asked as she took out a small leather journal from her coat.

Standing, Aziraphale answered, “Not at all, my dear,” as he left to retrieve the items. When he returned with both oak box and violet cloth in hand, he found Anathema muttering odd phrases to herself from the small leather book.

Upon seeing him arrive, Anathema outstretched her hands to receive both items from him. Obliging, Aziraphale handed both over. Promptly, she set them down and gestured Aziraphale to watch closely. Cautiously, Aziraphale sat back down and watched Anathema at work.

She held up the violet cloth to him and said, “Purple cloths- if used correctly- can protect items from spirits. They act as a sort of veil between our world and the other realms.”

Aziraphale nodded slowly, not wanting to voice his thoughts of this sounding completely mad. But he reminded himself with all of the things happening to him lately, he was basically forced to believe what she was telling him. 

Gingerly, Anathema picked up the book and wound the cloth tightly around it. Next, she opened the oak box that Aziraphale had purchased and placed the cloth covered book inside. She closed the box and latched it up with a lock seemingly made of pure silver that she also took from her coat. “Silver and oak also ward against spirits,” she explained. 

“Now comes the fun part,” she grinned at Aziraphale whom was still watching intently with bemusement.

Rubbing her hands together, Anathema placed them atop the chest with a great sense of purpose and started muttering something rapidly that sounded oddly like Latin.

Aziraphale gaped in absolute amazement as the woman’s hands began to glow a light blue. The light emitted from her hands seeped into the box like glowing tree roots. Needless to say, Aziraphale’s jaw dropped. 

As her mutterings slowed to a cease, the light from her hands dimmed and the ritual was complete. She withdrew her hands and clapped them together, “Well, wasn’t that fun?”

Aziraphale still could only stare.

She laughed, “I know it’s weird, Aziraphale, but try to keep up.”

She picked up the chest from the ground and put it in his trunk, covering it with some jumpers and then closing it up. Turning back to him, she brandished a key in her hand. “This will open the lock to the box; open it for important matters only,” she stared into his eyes with great severity as she handed over the key.

Aziraphale gazed down at the antique key in his palm. 

“The book protected the store, but I’m going to give you some extra reassurance. I don’t expect you to stay in the store at all times,” she said as she dug around in her pocket and withdrew the same rock on a string that he had seen her with days prior at his shop.

“Do you know what this is?” She asked, holding it up to his eye level.

Blinking at the clear piece of quartz in front of his eyes, Aziraphale lamely replied, “A...pendulum?”

“Correct,” she thrust it into his palm along with the key. “It swings in a circle when there are supernatural entities about. Before you go anywhere, just take it out and quickly check, ok?”

Aziraphale nodded dumbly. He was still at a complete loss for words.

She laughed at the state of the dazed young man. “I’m going to head back to the bakery now to make sure Newt hasn’t burned the place down or caused a power outage. I’ll call you later to check on you, ok?”

He nodded once more.

It wasn’t until she left that Aziraphale was brought out of his stupor.

“What the absolute Hell,” he muttered.

xxxXxxx

He was well aware of how unwise it was for him to do this. However, Aziraphale was feeling quite suffocated in his shop that once felt like home; now it just felt like a condemnation. As if he had purchased and crafted his very own jail cell to inhabit. Sighing, Aziraphale carefully retrieved the pendulum Anathema had gifted him from his pocket. Feeling ridiculous as he held it up in the air, he watched to see if it would start swinging round and round. It barely moved.

Slipping his jacket on and letting the pendulum fall back into his pocket, Aziraphale idly thought about how insane it was that he was entrusting his safety from supernatural beings in a rock and string. He shook that thought away from his mind. No matter the circumstances, he was adamant on enjoying his time in London; he would not be returning back to his old life because of this. All though, he didn’t know if being dead would be better than returning to Tadfield or not at this point. 

At a snail’s pace, Aziraphale reached out his hand and grasped the door handle. Gingerly, he opened the door and slipped outside into the night. He inhaled deeply, enjoying the fresh air filling up his lungs. It definitely wasn’t the cleanest air, but it wasn’t filled with mass amounts of dust like the air inside of his shop. First, he looked right and then he looked left down the street. It wasn’t deserted, but he didn’t see any odd looking people like he had earlier that day.

“It’s all quite normal,” he muttered to himself as he stepped down from his doorway and began his descent to St. James’ Park.

More than anything, Aziraphale just wanted to watch the ducks swim about the pond. In Tadfield he always enjoyed watching the wildlife as he was rather fond of animals. In London the wildlife was minimized to pigeons, ducks, or small terrier dogs. 

After a short walk, he entered St. James’ Park and found a bench right by the pond underneath a lamp light. Much to his delight, there seemed to be hardly a soul at the park save for a few couples that were holding hands under the small amount of stars that could be seen.

If only every moment could feel as normal as this one. The last few days had been traumatising and full of things that he was still trying to convince himself stemmed from stress- just hallucinations. Anathema told him to keep the book hidden and safe, but he didn’t want the book at all. To a degree, it was astonishing that for once in his life he was a part of something greater than himself, but he didn’t ever wish to be in the midst of a divine plan. Over all, the young man just found himself wanting his hands to be cleaned of this mess. Adventures were nice and all in theory, but he enjoyed reading about them much more than being a part of them.

“Maybe I could throw the book into the pond,” he sighed to himself as he watched the ducks play.

“You could do that, or you could give it to someone,” a voice behind him said.

Forced from his quiet musings to himself, Aziraphale shot to his feet and searched for where the voice had come from. It didn’t take much searching, as the owner of the voice was sauntering up to Aziraphale with its hands in its pockets. At once, even under the dim light, Aziraphale recognized the man to be the thief that stole his crepes. He began to panic, his thoughts rushing a mile a minute. Should he run? Was this a supernatural entity?

And more importantly, was he here to steal more than a crepe this time? At least Aziraphale didn’t have much money to mug.

Seeing the human so panicked just by his very presence, the red haired man couldn’t help but sport an amused smirk. “Relax, just here to watch the ducks,” the man dressed in all black said as he took a seat on Aziraphale’s bench.

A few moments passed where Aziraphale just gaped down at the man sitting draped across the bench in such a sloppy manner. Deciding that the man was no real imminent threat, Aziraphale slowly sat back down at the other end of the bench, putting as much distance as he could between them.

“Just here to watch the ducks,” Aziraphale repeated lamely, clutching the hem of his jacket in a sweaty grip. “Not here to steal my crepes again?”

The red haired man craned his head backwards with a raised brow and his nose scrunched up, “That was you, wasn’t it. What was your name again? Asmodeus…? Zachariah?”

“Aziraphale,” he retorted.

“Right, right. The angel,” the red haired man tutted to himself. 

Aziraphale managed a weak glare at him despite the fear coursing through his veins, “So what are you, then?”

The man stuck out his hand for the other to shake with a self assured smirk, “Crowley.”

For a moment, Aziraphale could only stare at the hand invading his space. Truly, he really did not want to shake this man’s hand. Hesitantly, Aziraphale took the hand in his and found it oddly warm, “I meant are you human; not your name.”

“Oh, I get it,” Crowley nodded to himself as he withdrew his hand, “I’m a demon.”

Aziraphale swallowed thickly and wrenched back his hand as if it had been burned, not tearing his eyes away from the ‘demon’ that was staring right back with amusement written across his face. “If you were a demon, I don’t believe you would be honest about it.”

Crowley shrugged, still bearing an off putting smirk, “Believe what you want, that’s the glory of being human.” 

“I’m guessing you’re wanting the book,” Aziraphale stated more than asked. He was glancing around the park, trying to spot someone close enough that he could call out to for help. It was apparent to him that he may be in danger and he was beginning to quickly worry about his safety.

Crowley hummed, “Not really, angel, but duty calls as it were. You don’t want it either, so why don’t you just hand it over and we’ll both be popping along.” 

Aziraphale’s eyebrows knitted together at the nickname. “I know what you’ll do with it, demon,” he countered with a bit of bite. His breathing was beyond rapid and at this point his little catholic heart was ready to bolt and get a crucifix. 

Eyebrows nearly shooting up to his hairline, Crowley leaned his head against his hand with a coy smile. This soft looking human had some edge to him, how entertaining. “Oh, do you now?”

Aziraphale tried to inch away even farther from the demon but the arm of the bench prevented him from it. “Yes. You’ll use it to win Armageddon and even if it is… imminent, I’m not helping anyone destroy the world.”

Before he could blink, Crowley was leaning in slightly closer, his arm draped behind Aziraphale on the back of the bench. A flush raised to his cheeks as he tugged on the arm of the bench, willing it to disappear so he could escape.

His grin splitting back into a characteristic, devilish smirk, Crowley replied, “My, my, what a morally upright human. But, angel, you must know what jeopardy your life is in.”

He took a deep, shaky breath in, not letting go of the metal arm; at that moment it felt like his only life line. “I am aware, yes.”

“Yet you still insist on not giving me the book. You must realise that most demons aren’t as…,” Crowley leant so close to him now that Aziraphale could feel the demon’s breath against his own nose. Just the slightest amount, the demon's sunglasses slipped down his long nose and Aziraphale could barely make out a pair of yellow eyes with snake-like slits for pupils. He gulped as Crowley continued, “Nice as I am. In fact, they’re convening right now to tear you apart and the angels aren’t so obliging either. You remember Gabriel, don’t you?”

Aziraphale’s eyes widened. Of course he remembered Gabriel. Just the night prior he had been scared half to death because of him. So Gabriel had been an angel? Aziraphale found that to be more terrifying than sitting next to a demon in the middle of the night on a park bench. With dark tinted cheeks, he mumbled, “I-It doesn’t matter. I trust Anathema and I will protect the book from the likes of you to protect humanity.”

Crowley whistled ironically, “Wo-ow, you’re definitely holier than any angel I’ve ever met.” He sat back, “Well, there’s always an alternative.”

“Alternative?” Aziraphale asked carefully, glad he had some personal space back in his arsenal. He felt like he could breathe again.

“I could help you protect the book in exchange for a favor,” the demon sniffed. 

“Why would you want to protect the book when you’re on the side trying to get it and in exchange for what sort of favor exactly?” Aziraphale fisted his hands around the hem of his jacket once more, trying to keep a mental break at bay.

“First of all, I’m on my own side- don’t forget it. Second of all, I’m all for Armageddon in general terms... but I’m not looking to bring it about,” Crowley sighed, adjusting his sunglasses back up his nose. “For the most part, I enjoy Earth. Could say I’ve gone a bit native,” he tsked to himself. “Anyways, my proposal is if I help you to protect the book- and you will need my protection- you just have to sort of act like…”

“Act like?” The human quirked his brow.

“Act like, you know- not like you're under my control necessarily, but just sort of under my thumb a bit,” Crowley finished nonchalantly with a wave of his hand, as if what he had just suggested wasn’t completely a demeaning and incredulous thought to Aziraphale.

“What for the devil for?!" Aziraphale rounded on him with his flush quickly returning to his cheeks. He could not believe the mere suggestion of it.

“LOOK, if Hell finds out I’m helping you instead of controlling you they’ll drown me in holy water.”

Aziraphale’s eyes practically sparkled at that, his interest piqued, “Holy water can kill you?”

Crowley sneered with a life-threatening glare, “Don’t get any ideas, angel. If I wanted to I could end you right now."

Aziraphale held back a pout at the threat. He was growing very tired of being threatened every few hours. “You’re the one suggesting I act like I’m under your command in exchange for protection. It's not exactly a fair deal, if you ask me.”

“I'm only asking you to act like it as a favor in public situations. Hell loves me because I make them see what I want them to see. If they knew what I really got up to, I'd be just as much of a goner as you. It's not my fault they barely check up to make sure my stories are legitimate,” Crowley trailed off to himself. He shook his head and looked back to the petrified human with a softened gaze, “It’s up to you whatever you decide, but the way I see it- you have nothing to lose.”

“The arrangement wouldn’t be anything too… embarrassing or life threatening. Just an arrangement, is all. In secret I help you do, whatever you decide to do, with that bloody book and outside of the shop you sort of just have to act like I’ve got you under my wing. I scratch your back, you scratch mine- so to speak."

A beat went by with Crowley staring deeply into the humans widened blue eyes, attempting to exude a tempting comfort. 

With that, Aziraphale shot back to his feet with his fists clenched at his sides. He may be easily convinced, but after the whole thing with Gabriel- he was no idiot now when it came to someone trying to coax him. “Are you trying to tempt me, demon?!”

Crowley threw his head back and let out a dramatic groan, “Ugh, there is nothing worse than a self aware human, I tell you. Yes- maybe I was trying to tempt you, all right- but the point still stands!”

The line between angels and demons was certainly getting skewed in Aziraphale’s mind. But he decided that demons still must be inherently worse than angels ever could be. In other words, he was seriously thinking about going to a local church and fetching some holy water.

“I do not need the assistance of a devil, but thank you,” Aziraphale seethed, quickly stomping off the way he came. 

“Be careful, angel,” the demon’s voice followed him as he went. It wasn’t meant to sound comforting at all, just taunting.

“Do not call me that!”

Crowley sighed, laying his head back against the back of the bench as he watched the human go. That had not gone exactly according to plan, but he couldn’t help but grin to himself. It was definitely amusing at the very least to mess with Aziraphale. 

xxxXxxx

Aziraphale crumpled against the closed front door of his shop. He drew his knees to his chest and hugged them there, trying to think of what to do. Anathema had indeed warned him that keeping the book wouldn’t be easy. His very life was in danger now, after all. But he wasn’t expecting to get reminded of his own mortality every time he left his home.

Sighing, he decided just sitting there wasn’t going to fix anything. He stood and slipped off his jacket. As he hung it on the coat rack by the door, a small piece of paper fluttered to the floor below. With a raised brow, he stooped and retrieved the piece of paper that was black in colour and quite small. Turning it over, he realised it was a business card of sorts and on the front written in neat, red script was “Anthony J. Crowley” accompanied by a phone number. Subconsciously, he wondered why the card smelt of cinnamon and what was the 'J' for? Shaking his head, Aziraphale pocketed the piece of cardstock.

He didn’t want to think that he was desperate for help, but he was feeling quite desperate at the moment. 

Pulling him from his thoughts, his mobile phone started buzzing in his pocket, nearly causing a heart attack. Retrieving it from his pocket he flipped it open and with a croaky voice answered, “H-hello?”

“Aziraphale?” Anathema’s voice said back, “Are you ok?”

He let out a sigh of relief, thankful it wasn’t his father because he hadn’t bothered to check the caller ID before answering.

“Yes, my dear, I’m all right,” he said unconvincingly.

The line went silent for a beat before Anathema spoke back up, “If you’re sure… I was calling to ask how things are going.”

“Oh, quite tickety-boo,” he replied uneasily. Tickety-boo? Where had that come from.

“I believe I’m just going to tuck in now, if you don’t mind, Anathema.”

“...Ok, just call me back if you need me.”

“I will, my dear. Good night,” he said finally and quickly shut the mobile device. 

The multiple clocks that he kept around the shop ticked in unison as he stood there. Blearily, he glanced around his shop. No matter what, the shop still felt a bit comforting to him, but he couldn’t dismiss the feeling within him that was a large pit of queasiness that told him to leave and never come back. 

He shook his head. Aziraphale was tired of running. He didn’t understand how his mother could do it for all of these years.

Carefully, he made his way to the backroom to take the book out of its confines. Rubbing his hand over the cool oak of the box, he opened it up and took out the book. He stared down at it with a frown. To Aziraphale, ignorance was never bliss. If the universe decided to hand him a book of infinite prophecies that was to be protected at all costs; then he would bear this burden. But he would bear it with his head held high and he would do his best to do right by humanity.

He opened up the book, determined to memorize every single prophecy within it. Maybe it would tell him what to do with this situation and how to best protect the book.

“Do your worst, Agnes Nutter,” Aziraphale whispered under his breath, glaring hard at the title page.

Aziraphale would no longer subject himself to being a pawn of the universe. At that moment he decided to take a proactive role in keeping divine secrets a secret.

xxxXxxx

Hastur stood in the dark and leaky alleyway outside of the back window of “A. to Z. Books”. Peering in the small, rounded window, his chalky face split into an evil grin. 

From what he could make out in the dim light, the human was lying curled up on a mattress on the ground below the window. In the human’s arm- almost staring back at him tauntingly- was the book. Hastur knew he couldn’t enter the shop without being burnt to a fiery crisp, but he could, however, mess with the human quite a bit.

Staring with immense concentration, Hastur’s soulless eyes focused in on Aziraphale as he began to whisper in tongues underneath his breath. Soon, Aziraphale began to stir on his mattress.

“What are you doing?” A voice seethed from behind him.

“Oh, Crowley, how nice of you to join me,” Hastur snarled with a demonic glint in his eyes as he turned to face his companion.

Crowley approached him from down the alleyway with his hands stuffed in his trouser pockets. He was afraid that if he took his hands out he may try to strangle Hastur. Crowley couldn't quite put his finger on why, but seeing Hastur on his territory- so to speak- made him incredibly agitated. It was that and the fact that he just downright loathed Hastur. “What are you doing?” He repeated.

Hastur shrugged and gestured towards the window for Crowley to see for himself. Keeping his guard up, Crowley stepped towards the window and peeked in. Just barely, Crowley could make out the form of Aziraphale still asleep on his mattress who was now twisting and turning with his brows drawn together in pain as he clutched the book in his arms in a deadly grip. The human was mumbling incoherent things in his sleep that made him look slightly possessed.

“You’re torturing his mind,” Crowley said simply, a grim expression on his face as he watched the scene play out before him.

Hastur nodded with an eerie, self assured simper that held all of the chaotic deviousness in the world. “Even if we don’t get the book, at least we can take his soul.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Crowley nodded, not being able to tear his eyes away from the human that was now thrashing about in a cold sweat. Trying to appear completely onboard with the whole mind torturing thing, Crowley said, “But, erm, I thought you were leaving this whole thing to me.”

Hastur glowered at him, “I do not trust you, Crowley.”

“I’ll handle it,” Crowley hissed, his forked tongue flicking out.

“Make sure that you do,” Hastur sneered, sizing him up. Slowly, Hastur turned and took his leave from the alley way back to the main street, deciding his work was done.

Left alone in the alleyway, Crowley glanced back at the window to see Aziraphale still in mental agony. Crowley's yellow eyes watched as the human began to emit what looked like small noises filled with pain. Pushing into the human's head, Crowley saw exactly what Hastur had instilled into it and found it to be beyond fucked up.

Face drawn into a deep scowl, Crowley glanced both ways down the alley. He was alone. 

No matter who may have cared to ask, Crowley would never be able to explain what he did next. He was a demon of many surprises and most of the time he wasn't even sure where his allegiances lied or where his ulterior motives came from. Ultimately, he was a being that acted on what he felt in the moment.

Cautiously, as he did not wish to be burned by the shop, he leant forward on the windowsill and whispered, “Angel, calm down. You're…,” he paused, “You’re safe now.” 

The thoughts vanished from the human's mind and were replaced by overwhelming feelings of protection and warm security.

With that, Aziraphale shot up from his bed, his face pale and his chest heaving. He raked a shaky hand through his messy curls as he slipped his round glasses onto his sweat coated face. His eyes darted around the room to locate some sort of possible assailant as he gasped for air. Nightmares were usual for him, but he never had one quite like that.

It was the type of nightmare that would leave him scarred for years.

Not finding any adversary within the room, Aziraphale looked to the window, but Crowley was already long gone.

At least from the nightmare, Aziraphale had an epiphany. The note had told him to guard himself well with the serpent… That Crowley fellow had eyes that resembled a snake’s quite miraculously. Not only that, but Crowley was the only one offering him protection besides Anathema. 

Blearily, Aziraphale glanced about as he steadied his breathing. Where had he left that business card?

xxxXxxx

A/N: This chapter basically killed me to write. It took me a while to figure out what sort of direction I wanted to go in, but ultimately I think I like the direction I chose. I really hope you enjoyed it. I especially enjoyed writing Crowley being a self preserving idiot that’s secretly a softie towards Aziraphale because I LIVE for a protective Crowley. He was once an angel, afterall. 

Anyways, please comment and let me know what you think or if anyone is actually interested in me continuing this


	5. Chapter 5

A/N: This was rushed because I’m leaving on holiday very soon and I am sorry, but I hope you enjoy it nonetheless @_@

xxxXxxx

Aziraphale paced to and frough in the front room of his bookshop. In his slightly pudgy hands, he held the small piece of black cardstock. Now, Aziraphale had heard about what it was like to have someone’s mobile number in their position and be distraught over when the appropriate time to call was. Usually, this could be found with teenagers that were dating one another. Needless to say, Aziraphale had no experience with that phenomenon because he had never actually dated anyone. Honestly, Aziraphale wasn’t sure if he was ever a proper teenager either.

So here he was staring at the mobile number of one ‘Anthony J. Crowley’ with such intensity and anxiety that it was becoming nauseating. He figured that his distress was warranted, however, as these sorts of situations didn’t normally include the number belonging to a demonic being.

“Aziraphale, just ring him,” he muttered to himself, trying to somehow bestow courage upon himself. 

After that evening’s night terror that can only be accurately described as devastating to his mental health, he was anxious for any scrap of help he could come by. Much to his misfortune, Anathema seemed to be awfully busy with the bakery the last couple of days. He wasn’t completely certain about what was causing all of the problems in her establishment, but he had heard from the neighbourhood watch that Newt had caused more than two power outages in the time that Anathema spent with him to help him out with the book.

Nevertheless, Aziraphale carried on his own research of the book without her. Through his research, Aziraphale had started at the very beginning to get a sense of how accurate the prophecies truly were. He was trying his very best to delicately ease himself into this new world of divine mischief and prophecies. Just by reading the start of the book, Aziraphale had found all of the prophecies thus far to be completely true. Everything from its predictions of the French Revolution to the Second World War. Aziraphale was fast approaching current events, but he was putting it off until his mind could handle it a little better.

He had, however, snuck a peak at a few choice prophecies that were about himself. Almost every prophecy that was written about him also included “the serpent”. He wasn’t entirely sure that “the serpent” was this Anthony J. Crowley, but he was optimistic that maybe his intuition was accurate for a change. He sincerely doubted it, though.

Aziraphale continued his worried pacing in the room. He hadn’t even opened up his shop today as money was the least of his current problems. In fact, he would call himself fortunate if his landlord were to force him from his home. He had made a vow to himself not to run anymore, but being forced away from this madness was another thing entirely. Right?

Carefully, Aziraphale approached the front window of his shop. With nimble hands he drew the red curtains back to peer outside. The angels and demons that were previously swarming his street had mostly dispersed since that day Anathema had dragged him to his own shop. Yet, there remained a few stragglers that Aziraphale caught glimpses of every few hours when he checked. Funny looking fellows in prim suits or covered in grime and scars mainly stayed at the end of street corners or in alleyways with their eyes glowing back at him.

Even though he may have had the pendulum to warn him, Aziraphale hadn’t felt safe enough to leave the shop in days. Surely, he would need to eventually leave to grocery shop. His cocoa mix was running dry.

Overall, Aziraphale was so very tired of being afraid in his own home. He must remind himself to take an active role in protecting the book and himself.

With some degree of determination mixed with dread, Aziraphale fished his mobile from his pocket and flipped it open. Hesitantly, he punched in the digits of Crowley’s number according to the piece of cardstock.

For a moment, he just stared down at the call button with his thumb hovering over it. Was he truly going to do this to himself? Open up another metaphorical can of worms that was sure to terrorize him in some way?

Glancing back out the window, his eyes met with what looked to be an angel based on the light suit and skin that seemed to glisten. The angel stared back with a menacing scowl. Truly, Aziraphale wasn’t sure if the angels or the demons terrified him more. 

Drawing the curtain closed, Aziraphale turned his attention back to the phone in his hand. Inhaling all of the courage he could, Aziraphale pressed the call button with reckless abandon.

A few rings sounded in his ear from the phone. Aziraphale bit his lip in anticipation when finally, the demon’s voice said from the other side of the line, “You’ve reached Crowley-”

“Hello, fellow- erm-” Aziraphale spoke up, but was quickly cut off by what he realised was an answering machine and not actually the demon that he wished to speak with.

“You know what to do, do it with style,” the answering machine spoke back to him with a beep at the end, signifying that Aziraphale could now say his piece.

Collecting his thoughts, Aziraphale spoke once more, “Yes, hello. Uhm.. this is Aziraphale. I wanted to speak to you about the erm… arrangement. You see, I-”

He was cut off once more when he heard the other line pick up abruptly. Through the phone, he could hear Crowley’s voice say, “You wish to talk about the arrangement, finally?”

Swallowing the fear bubbling up inside of him, Aziraphale replied, “..Yes.”

After a quick beat went by, Crowley’s voice came back. “All right, then, angel. Where do you want to meet? I can’t talk on the line, Hell can easily trace these sorts of things now, thanks to me,” he sighed at the end. The sort of sigh a man digging his own grave would emit. 

Aziraphale thought for a second because he hadn’t thought this far at all. “I would say St. James’ Park, but at the moment my shop is being watched. Walking anywhere is out of the question.”

Crowley gave a unthoughtful hum, “I’ll give you a lift, then. We can take a drive.”

“You want me to get into a car with you?” Aziraphale asked incredulously. The simple sound of the act had a twinge of suicide attached to it.

“That is what a lift implies, angel,” Crowley sighed in a usual tone that sounded as if he just couldn’t be bothered with the human’s concerns.

Standing there, Aziraphale weighed his options. On one hand getting into a stranger’s car, especially a demon’s, sounded insane. However, on the other hand, his shop was being staked out currently. His options were increasingly slim.

“All right, a lift is fine,” Aziraphale muttered into the phone, defeated. “What time will you be here?”

“I can be there in fifteen minutes, just look for a black bentley,” Crowley answered before promptly hanging up.

The line went dead and Aziraphale could only stare at the small device in his hand and think about the mistake he may have just made. With a great sigh, Aziraphale glanced towards the prophecy book laying on the table where he had left it. Agnes wrote that the serpent would be his greatest protector.

He could only hope that Agnes would not steer him wrong and that Crowley was indeed the correct serpent and there wasn’t some sort of garden snake out searching for him.

xxxXxxx

Within fifteen minutes- nearly on the dot- Aziraphale heard a sudden screech of tires and a few shouts outside of his shop. With eyebrows drawn together, Aziraphale quickly grabbed his coat off of the hook and tugged it on. Opening the curtains of the front window once more, he saw what was indeed a black bentley parked haphazardly outside of his shop. Although, the car was much older than he had anticipated. He couldn’t exactly place the correct year of the car, but he was certain it was at least a century old at most. He hadn’t taken Crowley as the sort that would enjoy antiques such as himself.

Shaking away all of his unhelpful thoughts, Aziraphale circled round to his front door and pulled it open. Hesitantly, he took in a deep breath and stepped out of his shop. As he was hurrying to lock it, he could see all sorts of movement in his peripheral vision. Once the door was firmly locked, Aziraphale spun around to see all of the strange figures that were down and across the street speed walking towards the shop. Towards him.

Panic seeping into his veins like it had been from a straight injection, Aziraphale fumbled down the few stairs that led to his shop door and to the bentley. 

Just as he approached the car, the passenger side door flew open smoothly as if it had done it on its own. The human stopped for a moment in a dumb stupor as he saw Crowley just sitting there in the car staring at him with a grave expression on his face and his fist tighened around the steering wheel while some sort of awful music bellowed from the vehicle. 

“Don’t just stand there all day, get in,” Crowley waved a come hither motion with some sense of urgency.

Listening without a second thought, Aziraphale all but jumped into the car and shut the door after him and pushed the lock down just as a man with yellowed teeth and blackened irises caught up to him and tugged on the door handle. Seeing this, Crowley muttered a bless under his breath and threw the bentley into gear, sending the vehicle flying down the street.

“Oh, dear-” Aziraphale swallowed, grabbing for his seat belt and yanking on it to buckle himself in as quick as humanly possible, but the damn thing locked up on him. “C-Can you slow down?” He pleaded with owl-like eyes as the bentley skidded around a corner, slamming him into the car door. 

Completely ignoring him, Crowley kept his eyes trained on the road as he expertly maneuvered the vintage vehicle to the outskirts of the city whilst tapping along to the song playing over the radio.

Breathing deeply, Aziraphale eventually was able to get his seat belt secured, but he still held onto it for dear life. He couldn’t figure out if the demon was driving so recklessly because they were being chased or because the demon just didn’t care to abide by basic traffic rules. In the end, he considered it was most definitely both. Aziraphale could only sit there with vomit sitting at the back of his throat, threatening to spew out as Crowley whipped them down windy roads. 

All of a sudden, the bentley lurched to a halt in front of a wide open field, their pursuers nowhere to be found. Somehow, Crowley had gotten them from urban London to rural countryside in a matter of minutes. On the road they were on now, only a few cars passed every once in a while.

Beside him, Crowley put the car into park and removed the keys from the ignition with such calmness that it was as if the last ten minutes of utter Hell hadn’t occurred. Whilst the demon was looking like the epitome of tranquility, the human was looking quite green.

“That was fun, wasn’t it?” Crowley smirked, entirely enjoying the look of raw fear written across Aziraphale’s face.

“Why…” Aziraphale clenched the strap of nylon tighter between his fists, “Why would you drive like that?!” He rounded on the demon with eyes the size of his teacup saucers. 

The demon sat back with a short noise that almost sounded like a laugh. “To get here faster, obviously.”

“You can’t drive like that through central London!” Aziraphale barked at him. He had never ever been a violent man, but at that moment he was absolutely fuming at the demon’s antics. He wanted nothing more than to slap that silly smirk off of Crowley’s face, but he couldn’t bring himself to do such a thing. 

“Why not?” Crowley sniffed.

“B-because you could hurt someone-” Aziraphale clamped his mouth shut as soon as the words left him. Clearly, Crowley would not care about hurting someone because, afterall, he was a demon. As if Aziraphale could forget such a thing.

He sighed, sitting back in the leather seat with a sulk and his ears tinted red from his rage. He knew no matter what he said to scold Crowley, it wouldn’t have any effect at all on changing the demon’s moral character. 

Crowley leaned his head against his hand, propping his elbow up on the dashboard. The demon stared at him through his sunglasses with a smug demeanor.

Feeling the uncomfortable stare on his skin, Aziraphale glanced from the corner of his eyes to meet the demon’s. “What?”

Crowley sat up, “Nothing, nothing.” He showed the palms of his hands in act to show he wasn’t hiding anything. Dropping his hands, he sat back once more and stared at Aziraphale with such intensity as he added, “Are we going exchange loving glances all day long or are we going to talk business?”

Aziraphale felt his eye twitch, “Yes, that is what we are here for.” He turned to face the bane of his existence. “If I were to agree to his arrangement... what exactly would I have to do? I want to know the every detail, so you cannot trick me later on.”

“Why would I trick you?” Crowley asked innocently.

Another half-hearted glare from Aziraphale wiped the smug smirk from his face.

“Right, right. Fine. Let’s start with the light-hearted bit, shall we? What would you like from this arrangement,” Crowley folded his hands in his lap, imitating Aziraphale’s posture.

“Well, I would like protection from beings such as yourself.”

“I know this is your first soiree with a demon, but you may want to be a bit more specific. Demons are excellent at finding loopholes, angel,” Crowley grinned, earning a glare from the human.

“Very well. I would like unadulterated physical and mental protection provided by yourself from demonic and angelic entities... Whatever I may decide to do with the prophecy book, I would like your help in carrying that matter through. And what I decide to do with the book is my choice and my choice alone,” Aziraphale paid him a stern look. “In addition, I don’t want you to harm me or betray me- whether that be through physical or mental methods. I… I wish to be able to put full trust in you without being wronged in the end,” he said calmly, realising how ridiculous it was that he was hoping to establish trust between himself and Crowley for obvious reasons. 

Crowley adjusted his sunglasses with a tsk. “All right, ready to hear what I want?”

Aziraphale saw the glint of the other’s golden eyes over the rim of the sunglasses, reminding him just how truly abnormal and demonic the other was. He bit the inside of his cheek and nodded.

“I have good standing in Hell, but demons being demons- they don’t trust me; not that I really blame them,” Crowley thought to himself. “I’ll agree to your terms for the mutual benefit of preventing the end of the world in exchange for you helping me to fool my demonic colleagues. All that I’m about to say applies to when we’re in public settings not in private. In public you have to act as though I’m tempting you. Just sort of like... I’m commanding you?” Crowley groaned, “Look, I get this is sounding like a some sort of grimy rom com like Fifty Shades of Grey- but in reality it won’t be that bad. If I abide by your end of the arrangement, I won’t have any actual influence over you. On your part it’s all pretend.”

Aziraphale scrunched up his nose at the mere mention of the foul book. He had read it in his first year of university, but that wasn’t important right now. “I have to act like I’m being mind controlled, essentially?”

“Yes, on the nose,” Crowley confirmed, touching the end of his own nose with a smirk.

Aziraphale grimaced, “That’s a rather embarrassing task, Crowley.”

“And it’s embarrassing for a demon to become a lap dog of a human and some bloody book,” Crowley replied, deadpanned.

Aziraphale stared down at the carpet below of the bentley that was miraculously and impeccably clean. “Is there anyway I can be guaranteed that you will hold up your end of the arrangement?”

“Of course. After all demons, in their truest form, are just business men so we have,” Crowley paused and Aziraphale watched as the demons snapped his fingers. In an instant, Crowley’s hand was engulfed in flames. The fire travelled down from his hand to his sleeve until it took the form of solid paper. “Contracts!” he finished in a ‘ta-da’ sounding voice.

Aziraphale carefully took the contract that was a second ago completely made from flames out of Crowley’s hand and began to read over the documents. The contract was short and brief with everything that Aziraphale had asked for entailed within it. 

Watching him closely, Crowley took out a pen from his coat jacket and held it up to Aziraphale. “Sign only if you’re positive about it. If you sign we’ll both be bound to it and will continue to be until we both agree to end the contract.”

The look on Aziraphale’s face may have caused anyone else to pity him, but Crowley was finding himself unable to feel any sort of pity for the human today. Especially since he had done his good deed of the century when he had chased the nightmare away from Aziraphale’s head those few days ago. 

The demon continued to silently watch the human. Aziraphale was staring down at the papers so crestfallen that it was hard not to feel something stir about in his chest where a metaphorical black hole was. 

Ok, so maybe he was feeling a bit of pity towards the human.

“If you sign, I will devote my time to ensuring your safety as agreed,” Crowley spoke softly. “I haven’t done much recon in a while, but I can get you photographs and names of all known demons and angels on Earth so you know who to look out for.” 

Inwardly, Crowley groaned. He was really losing his demonic touch.

Aziraphale glanced back at Crowley with a small smile. Just as he was about to open his mouth to say some form of thank you for the attempt of consolidation, his phone buzzed in his pocket. 

Without much thought, he withdrew his phone from its confines and looked at the small LED screen on the front. It was a voice message from his father. Feeling his hands already beginning to turn sweaty, Aziraphale flipped it open. With hands trembling, Aziraphale placed the phone up to his ear. For the moment, he ignored the fact that Crowley was watching him in an instance that felt too vulnerable for his liking. He knew the fear that he was feeling was written across his face like a big red stamp.

Biting away the inside of his lip, Aziraphale pressed the green button to listen to the voicemail and waited. 

The voicemail clicked on and the message said in his father’s usual, authoritative voice, “Aziraphale, I am not playing these games with you any longer. You have ignored your brothers’ and I messages for weeks. If you do not return home soon, you will leave me no choice but to come and find you.”

The message clicked off and Aziraphale was left sitting there with his heart trying to hammer its way out of his chest. Slowly, Aziraphale took the phone away from his ear and snapped it shut. He curled his hand around the mobile device and squeezed with all of his might as a way of calming himself down. Crowley only watched with one brow lifted and his lip quirked down at one side. 

In his own time, Aziraphale eventually glanced back to Crowley and said, “Can you protect me from human beings, as well?”

Blinking, Crowley replied with suspicion etched into his voice, “I suppose? Humans are worse than demons, afterall.”

Taking the pen from Crowley’s hand, Aziraphale turned back to the stack of documents in his lap. “Yes, they most definitely are,” he mumbled as he signed in cursive script.

xxxXxxx

After another car ride that was sure to leave Aziraphale mentally scarred for many years to come, the odd duo arrived back at Aziraphale’s shop after night had fallen. He reached for the door handle slowly, then paused. Staring out the bentley’s window at his shop, Aziraphale felt a wave of uneasiness wash over him. Honestly, he couldn’t put his finger on why, but something told him to stay in the car. Then again his intuition was never a friend to him.

“What’s the matter, angel,” Crowley asked rhetorically with a tilt of his head and a condescending voice, “Would you like me to walk you to your door?” He sniggered.

Aziraphale shot him the best scowl his kind heart could muster. “Are you patronizing me, Crowley?”

The demon sniffed, “A little, yes.”

With a scoff, Aziraphale closed his hand around the handle and pushed the car door open. Truth be told, he was a little afraid to walk the short distance from the pavement to his front door. Anything can happen in that amount of time. Sure, this street was relatively safe. 

But not with demons other than Crowley lurking about.

Standing firmly right outside of the bentley, Aziraphale held the door open still. He glanced up and down the street, his breath making small swirls in the cold night air. All the hair on the back on the back of his neck was standing to attention as his grip tightened on the car door. He couldn’t will himself to step forward and he had no idea why. From what he could tell, there was no one lingering about. But this petrified feeling sat in his stomach and weighed him down like a heavy stone would.

A good distance away, there was in fact a pair of glowing violet eyes that were staring right at him. 

Biting his lip, Aziraphale turned around to face Crowley who was looking at him the whole time with his face scrunched up in a way that can only be described with words like ‘what the fuck?’

“Would y-you…,” Aziraphale stammered. He closed his eyes and inhaled shortly, “Would you like to come in for a cup of cocoa?”

Crowley blinked, staring at him over his sunglasses dumbfoundedly, “What?” But it sounded more like ‘wot’.

Aziraphale rung his hands together nervously. “Would you like to come in for some cocoa?” He repeated, feeling completely and utterly pathetic. The human knew he must look that way, too.

Crowley sucked on his teeth with a regarding look, “Why?”

“I-I just thought it would be nice,” Aziraphale muttered, but in actuality every minute longer he stood there the more uncomfortable he felt. Something eerie was in the air, sending chills along his spine. Finally, he identified it as the feeling of being watched by more than one pair of eyes.

“Is cocoa the only beverage on the table, or do you have alcohol?” The demon tilted his head back the slightest bit in consideration. 

“I may have some communion wine leftover,” Aziraphale supplied with a hopeful glint in his eyes. God, he just wanted to get into the comfort of his shop.

“Wow. That is wrong on so many levels, but I suppose it’ll do,” Crowley sighed as he took the keys out of the ignition and exited the bentley, shutting the door behind him.

Aziraphale beamed, completely ignorant to the fact that he had offered communion wine to a demon.

With his hands in his pockets in a bored demeanor, Crowley strode up to the front door of the shop with Aziraphale right at his heels. Hurriedly, the human fumbled with his keys to get the door open as soon as possible. He wondered if Crowley was feeling as watched as he felt. Shouldn’t supernatural entities be able to sense others?

With the door finally opened, Aziraphale held it open and said brightly, “After you.”

“No, no,” Crowley shook his head with a dismissing wave of his hand. “This is sacred ground, you need to step inside and formally invite me in by name or I’ll be burnt to a crisp and I am not a fan of that.”

“Oh, all right,” Aziraphale mumbled. Throwing manners to the window, he stepped inside ahead of Crowley and turned to the devil on his doorstep. “Crowley, I invite you in,” he said, hoping he had done it right.

Nodding, Crowley sauntered through the doorway with ease; Aziraphale shut it firmly behind him. He was so thankful to be out of the open night. He still had the heebie jeebies, but it wasn’t as bad.

Now he was in another situation he didn’t want to be in, at all. He was safely inside his home, but accompanied by a demon. Aziraphale became very aware of how silent the shop was save for the sound of Crowley’s shoes clicking about as he strode around Aziraphale’s shop, trailing his fingers along the spines of the books. 

Chewing nervously on the inside of his cheek, Aziraphale rocked back and forth on his heels as he watched Crowley like a hawk. What would his father think of him? Having a demon in his home? And God was definitely real, that was apparent to him now. Oh God, what would God think?

As Aziraphale had a small meltdown in his brain from years of Catholic conditioning, Crowley examined each of the books with vague interest. He was not a book person at all.

“So what about that blood of Christ, then?” Crowley asked with his brow quirked.

“Oh, right,” Aziraphale stalked to the backroom to make himself a mug of cocoa and a glass of communion wine for Crowley. Truly, he wished to get intoxicated himself tonight, but he refused to touch a drop of alcohol whilst Crowley was around. They may have a pact, but he still didn’t trust Crowley. Not trusting a demon wasn’t a bad thing, he reminded himself.

Crowley slowly strode up to the record player sitting in the far corner of the shop. The thing was an old phonograph with a terribly rusted horn and chipped wood. Idly, Crowley thumbed the stack of vinyl records. Maybe the human had good taste in music and they could find some sort of common ground.

The demon found himself cringing uncontrollably as he read the record names. In Aziraphale’s collection he had the likes of: The Best of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata, The 21 Nocturnes of Chopin, Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, and a lot of other shit that was making the demon stick his tongue out in disgust. He made a mental note to himself to introduce modern music to the human.

How could he be more modern than a bloody human? Well, whatever. If he had to stick around this human for long, then he would make sure to change his backward music tastes.

Even though he detested classical music, Crowley wasn’t very fond of silence. Biting the bullet, Crowley slid the record of Moonlight Sonata out of its sleeve and with knowledgeable ease set it up in the phonograph. He did have some sort of appreciation for the spooky music that was Moonlight Sonata, at least. He was a big fan of spooky.

Returning from the backroom, Aziraphale handed over the glass of wine to Crowley with a frown. “Why are you playing Moonlight Sonata at a time like this?”

Taking the glass, Crowley shrugged, “It’s the only sort of classical music I can tolerate. Honestly, you have zero taste.” The demon took a sip of the communion wine with a scrunched nose, “Why? Are you feeling creeped out right now?” He grinned wolfishly at the human who he knew to be afraid. Why else would Aziraphale invite him in?

Scowling at him, Aziraphale glanced to the wine in the demon’s hand then back to the man’s sunglasses. He took a sip of the cocoa in his own hand. “You know,” he said matter-of-factly, “It’s a wonder that the wine doesn’t harm you like holy water.”

Without a beat going by, Crowley was spitting the violet liquid back into the glass. The thought hadn’t occurred to him. “You could have shared that thought with the class before I drank it!” he seethed.

“Escaped my mind, I’m afraid,” Aziraphale shrugged with a mischievous grin of his own as he took a seat in one of the plump armchairs in the shop. He had never been the type to be mischievous, but Crowley seemed to drag it out of him.

Crowley leaned back against a wall with a scowl. Eventually, the demon decided that if the wine hadn’t killed him yet then it should be safe to consume. With a resentful grunt, Crowley tilted his head all the way back and drained the whole glass. When he wiped the corner of his mouth with his sleeve he saw that Aziraphale was staring at him with wide eyes.

“Never seen an alcoholic before?” Crowley quirked a brow.

Aziraphale frowned and pointed to the bottle of the communion wine that he had set down on the till counter. “No, not really.”

Grabbing the bottle up, Crowley refilled his glass with ease and asked, “All right, you asked me in. So what’s up?”

Aziraphale stared down at the mug he was holding in his lap. He didn’t want to reveal to Crowley that he had invited him in just because he felt a little scared of what may be lurking in the dark. Instead, he opted to say, “I have questions.”

Nodding, Crowley took the seat across from Aziraphale. The demon draped his long limbs across it as if he owned it, “I’m all ears.”

Thinking, Aziraphale asked carefully, “What can you do?”

Crowley sipped his wine, “I can drink copious amounts of alcohol and recount every prime minister of England off the top of my head.”

Aziraphale rolled his eyes, “I meant as a demon. What are your abilities?”

“Shoulda been more specific,” Crowley sing-songed as he laid back in the chair further. “I can do just about anything with a snap of my fingers. Make things go away or come back to life. Honestly, I’m not sure what my limitations are until I get there.”

Considering this, Aziraphale ran his finger around the rim of his mug, “I see. Could you… could you actually control me, if you wanted?”

Crowley hummed, “Course, but it’d break our agreement, so you don’t need to worry about it.”

“I see,” Aziraphale muttered. His eyes trailed over to the wine bottle. Maybe he did need a little alcohol to warm his nerves whilst he asked questions that he wasn’t certain he wanted to know the truth of. “What is Hell like?” He asked.

Noticing Aziraphale eyeing up the bottle, Crowley reached across the space between them and handed it over to the human. The demon watched as his acquaintance filled his mug with wine, “Do you really want to know?”

Swirling the cocoa around with the wine and chugging the odd concoction much like Crowley had except he coughed afterwards, “Yes. It’s where I’m going… I might as well know.

Crowley’s eyes narrowed and his brow furrowed. Idly he wondered if the human was trying to impress him by downing the alcohol immediately. “How do you know?”

“Just… I know,” Aziraphale muttered, refilling his mug and then handing the bottle back to Crowley who now also needed more.

“Well, it’s pretty drab. Lots of dim lighting, leaky pipes, and shuffling souls. For some reason the souls lick the walls occasionally,” he scratched his chin. Truth be told, he had never actually seen anyone lick the walls, but he assumed it must occur considering there were signs against the act. “That’s the highest level of Hell, though. I’ve never visited the lower levels and I never wish to.”

Aziraphale nodded thoughtfully. “So when a person dies do they become a demon or just a soul in Hell?”

“Demons are fallen angels. The humans that die and go there are just souls, as you said,” Crowley replied, taking a swig directly from the bottle.

The human’s nose twitched at the act. People that drank straight from milk bottles were criminals in his eyes and shared wine bottles were no exception.

“You’re fallen, then?” He asked carefully. Suddenly he became very interested in Crowley’s past. 

Crowley nodded as he swung his hand around lazily like a conductor to the song playing in the background, “Yup. Have been since the beginning.”

“You were an angel?” Aziraphale breathed incredulously. It was difficult to see Crowley as anything but a demon, but he had been an angel. He couldn’t be so bad then, right?

“Mm-hm,” Crowley replied, a little touchily. 

“What was your name?” He asked carefully, staring at the demon with a swell of emotion in his eyes. By nature, Aziraphale was a true empath. He picked up on the hurt that was hidden behind Crowley’s wall of stone immediately. 

A tense air befell the two all of a sudden.

“It doesn’t matter,” he gave a warning glare.

Despite being completely and utterly afraid of anything supernatural, Aziraphale found that with the courage the wine had bid him he had enough confidence in himself to place a gentle hand on Crowley’s elbow. The demon flinched at the touch and stopped mid sip. His eyebrows shot together and his lip quirked up by his canine teeth like he may use them to rip the human’s throat out. 

“Angel-”

Blue eyes piercing through Crowley’s black sunglass lenses and equally his black soul, Aziraphale sported the most beautiful and radiant of smiles that the demon had ever witnessed. “You’re right, it doesn’t matter. Crowley is a wonderful name.”

With a sharp grunt, Crowley jerked his arm away from the human’s touch and forced the glass to cover his features as he gulped down the rest eagerly. Despite his efforts, Aziraphle could see the bit of pink dusting the demon’s cheeks. He wasn’t sure if it was from him touching Crowley or from the embarrassment of him praising the demon.

The human smiled to himself. Maybe Crowley isn’t all of the hard edges that he had thought he was. Just maybe they could find a weird comradery between one another. 

Aziraphale tentatively changed the subject from the demon’s own history. “What is Heaven like?”

“You don’t need to know if you’re not going,” Crowley quipped with a pointed look, upset with himself that he had let the human make him become so flustered. 

Aziraphale assumed this was what he got for thinking Crowley could be different. With a sigh, Aziraphale retorted, “I would like to know, though.”

Swinging his legs down from where he had them propped up over the arm of the chair, Crowley leaned his elbows on his knees and met the other’s eyes with an intense, direct gaze and a sneer, “And I wish to know why you believe you’re going to Hell.”

“I have simply committed certain sins…,” Aziraphale sighed, gripping his mug hard between his hands. He sat back further in the chair, avoiding the close proximity between them. The demon had truly turned a tender moment between them into one full of uncomfortable regret and resentment.

Crowley scoffed, sitting back in the chair as if the answer had been a huge let down. He was feeling particularly difficult after the human’s attempt at being kind to him. Inwardly, Crowley appreciated it. Outwardly, however, he was going to make sure that Aziraphale knew it was a mistake. With fake softness to his voice, Crowley replied, “Everyone commits sins, angel. That’s just reality. Most of them won’t cause anyone to be sent to Hell. Hell is more of reserved for the big bads of the world. I doubt you need to worry unless you’ve killed someone.”

Suspiciously, Aziraphale found himself feeling gracious endearment towards Crowley. Was the demon being genuine? He couldn’t tell.

The demon had gifted him a small shred of hope, however, with a few simple words. Possibly, Crowley had appreciated his sympathy and was returning it. “You really think so?”

“Suuure,” Crowley refilled his glass for the umpteenth time. “But who knows, maybe you really have done something bad enough to warrant eternal damnation,” he winked and Aziraphale’s smile dropped.

The human couldn’t help but think with a frown about what an insufferable bastard the demon was.

xxxXxxx

Outside of the shop, Gabriel sat watching through the window as the pair became more and more intoxicated as they bantered with one another through the night.

He let out an irritated breath. Behind him Hastur strolled up to him with less grace than a three legged pig. “Worrying isn’t it?” Hastur sneered, standing at the archangel’s side.

Gabriel glanced at the duke of Hell with unadulterated animosity. “What is, fiend?”

“Knowing you’re going to lose. Crowley will have the book for us in no time as long as he charms the human well enough,” Hastur grinned, revealing all of his rotted teeth and the fact that his breath smelt of death.

Gabriel looked back to the window, glaring so hard through the window pane that he could feel it in his eyeballs almost. As if any moment he would truly burn a hole in it. “Don’t be so sure.”

xxxXxxx

A/N: Wow, ok. Sorry if this sucked and that it was short, but I’m going on holiday tomorrow and won’t be able to post for about a week to a week and a half. So I made sure this would get updated in time so you wouldn’t be waiting that long. Hence this being short and rushed. Next chapter will be much better I hope and have more plot in it. Again, I am so sorry.

Also side note I was really tired when I posted this, so let me know if there are any sort of mistakes in here that I may have not seen through my sleep deprivation.

Thank you and leave a kudo or a comment, they’re very much appreciated!


	6. Chapter 6

A/N: I’m back from holiday, it was a bit dreadful and I got a good sunburn. But hey now my skin’s got some colour. 

Anyways, the shit storm of plot is beginning and I am excited! I hope you’re equally excited. I enjoyed writing this chapter a lot, particularly a certain scene in here that I think everyone can appreciate.

Thank you and enjoy at your leisure!

xxxXxxx

Shifting uncomfortably from where he was laying, Aziraphale opened his eyes with a muffled groan. The discomfort was stemming from his body being contorted into a very cramped position and the addition of sunlight peeking in from some place that was perfect enough to have it shining right in his eyes. Peeling his eyes open slowly, Aziraphale blocked the sunlight with his arm and begrudgingly sat up. Absently, he glanced around.

It didn’t take him long to figure out that he was still on one of the armchairs in the front room of his bookshop and judging by the sunlight it was most likely early morning. Slowly, the previous night came flooding back to him in splotchy bits and pieces. He vaguely recalled the traumatising drive with the demon and then the cocoa and communion wine festivity that followed afterwards. Beyond that his memory was failing him quite a bit and he figured it was from the amount of wine he had ended up consuming in an effort to rid himself of stress. Shifting his legs down from where they sat over the arm of the chair, he planted them on the floor below and stood. While he rubbed the sleep away from his bleary eyes, his gaze landed right on the demon that was sat draped over the adjacent armchair. 

Fortunately, Crowley seemed to still be fast asleep. Did demons even need sleep? He didn’t know. 

Idly, he wondered why Crowley had not left last night to sleep in his own home. This thought led to other troubling thoughts such as: did the demon even have a home? Did Crowley know that Aziraphale had been afraid to be by himself last night and that’s why he stayed?

No, that one couldn’t be right at all.

Despite himself, Aziraphale couldn’t help but stare at the demon’s sleeping face. Against his better judgement, he quietly stepped forward to get a better look. At some point in the night, Crowley must have taken his sunglasses off because they lay forgotten on the table beside the sleeping demon. This fact allowed Aziraphale to get a good view of Crowley’s features. Seemingly, even in his sleep, Crowley was comprised of all hard edges and angles. The man’s face appeared to be drawn into a permanent scowl.

His blue eyes traced over every bit of Crowley in amazement because- in simple terms… he thought Crowley looked quite immaculate (although he would never admit it aloud) and well, this was a demon. There was a demon asleep right in front of him, looking as peaceful as a demon could be expected to look. Up until a few weeks ago, Aziraphale had lost touch with his faith completely. But now here it was, staring him right in the face when he thought he had lost all hope of there being some divine being looking out for him. 

This wasn’t the exact divine protection he was hoping for, but he supposed Crowley would do.

Eventually, his gaze landed on the small snake tattoo that was inked into the side of Crowley’s jaw right under his sideburn. Heart hammering in his chest, something inside of himself compelled Aziraphale to reach out towards it. Just as his pointer and middle finger were about to brush the side of the demon’s face, Aziraphale came back to his senses and wrenched his hand away as if it had been burned. With widened eyes, he held his objecting fingers in his other hand tightly as he stared down at the demon who was now stirring lightly in his sleep.

“Aziraphale, what on earth are you doing?” He whispered furiously to himself, bringing himself out of the trance that befallen him. Not giving himself another chance to creepily leer at Crowley in his sleep, the human quickly left to the backroom of the shop as silently as he could. 

What was the matter with him?

Shaking his head to rid himself of the stress inducing thoughts, Aziraphale willed himself to focus on something else. He didn’t recall much of the previous night, but with his mild headache and the lingering aftertaste in his mouth- he knew that he had drunk enough wine to make his current appearance disheveled and not at all to his impeccable standards.

As Aziraphale entered the small dim lit room that was his restroom, he attempted not to look too closely at his own reflection (he was certain it would give him a fright if he had). He just felt grimey and knew he must be. Picking up his toothbrush from the small silver cup that lay to the side, Aziraphale brushed his teeth for a generous amount of time. After spitting out the residue from his mouth, he washed his face with a spare rag from the hand rack. Once he had completed that to his satisfaction, he combed his unkempt hair and let the curls bounce back to their usual stylish manner. Bidding himself a fleeting smile in the mirror to lift his spirits, he exited the restroom to get changed.

With a glance back at the door to make sure Crowley had not woken up and went searching for him, he stalked over to his leather trunk in the corner and hastily pulled out a light blue button down and a pair of brown trousers with matching wool socks. Always the one to slip on trousers and socks first, Aziraphale was just about to button up his shirt when the door slammed open.

Choking on a startled gasp, Aziraphale grabbed the two sides of his shirt and tugged them together to cover up his bare torso with his eyes as wide as his teacup saucers. He watched in horror with pink tinted ears as Crowley sauntered into the room with his hands stuffed into his trouser pockets nonchalantly. Sunglasses returned to their home on Crowley’s nose, the demon glanced around the room slowly with distaste as he strode around it- not particularly looking at the human.

“You live quite… modestly,” Crowley sniffed. He decided to say modestly as that was the more polite term, but in reality he thought that the human lived like a pauper from the Victorian era. He would know, he had been there. 

Continuing to struggle to cover himself up, Aziraphale all but shouted, “Crowley, you need to knock before entering a room!”

“What?” Crowley’s brows furrowed as he finally turned his attention to the human standing there looking very much like a sorority girl in some film trying to cover her naked form with a towel. He craned his head back with a scoff, “Oh, it’s nothing I haven’t seen before, angel.”

“WHAT?” Aziraphale nearly shrieked, the red shooting from his ears to across his entire face. 

Crowley gave a dismissive wave of his hand at the human who seemed like he may faint at any given moment. “Calm down, I mean humans in general. Not specifically you.”

“Please turn around until I’m decent,” Aziraphale seethed, clutching onto the poor shirt fabric for dear life.

With an elongated sigh and a roll of his head, Crowley turned on his heel and faced the wall, crossing his arms over his chest, “And people say I’m dramatic.”

Fingers moving at lightning speed, Aziraphale quickly did up every button on his shirt all the way up to the collar. Once it was completely buttoned, he tucked the shirt into his trousers and grabbed his tartan bow tie from its spot on the kitchenette counter. Even though he was fully clothed in Crowley’s presence now, the obvious embarrassment had not left his face. The fact that the demon had now seen him indecent right after he had stared quite weirdly at said demon sleeping- admiring his features- it was all too much. What had become of his life.

“Y-you can turn around now,” Aziraphale murmured, tying the bow tie around his neck haphazardly from his hands shaking. 

The demon spun around and stared at the human who looked like a mess of nerves as he attempted to tie on the most hideous item of clothing Crowley had ever seen. With his nose scrunched up in obvious disgust, he asked, “Are you really going to wear that?”

Despite his embarrassed stupor, Aziraphale managed a good scowl at the other, “It was a gift from my mother. Yes, I’m going to wear it.”

“Ngk, fair enough,” Crowley muttered as he turned back around. The demon stared at the kitchenette for a second before he began to rummage through the cupboards with some sense of purpose.

Watching the rude act, Aziraphale huffed, “Anything I can help you find, perhaps?”

Continuing to sift through the various cans of food, Crowley grunted, “I’m looking for breakfast, angel.”

“Breakfast?” Aziraphale parroted as he finished fixing his bow tie. He stepped behind the demon, watching his impertinent guest closely. 

“Yeah, you’re the host aren’t you? Didn’t even offer your guest breakfast,” Crowley quipped matter-of-factly. 

“Oh, I suppose you’re right…” Aziraphale frowned. The demon may be an unwanted guest, but he was still a guest nonetheless. “Not to sound rude, but why did you sleep over? And do demons even require food, let alone sleep?”

Glancing at the human over his shoulder as he searched through Aziraphale’s tea tins, he snarked back, “We’re playing twenty questions now? Fair enough, I guess. First, I didn’t feel like making the drive home. Second, I don’t need to do either, but I enjoy both so I do both.”

Taking in the new information with some consideration, Aziraphale gave a short hum before he started to swat Crowley away from his cupboards, “While that may be, I don’t have anything in there to feed you for breakfast, Crowley.”

Jumping back from being hit in the arm quite dramatically, as if he was truly being assaulted, Crowley grumbled, “You live here, how do you not have any food?”

Stepping in front of the demon and ushering him out of the way, Aziraphale began shutting all of the opened cupboards and fixing the mess the other had caused with slight irritation. “I haven’t been to the market for some days,” he huffed simply. He didn’t want to admit to the demon that it was because he was too afraid to go on his own. 

Groaning from the lack luster results of his fruitless searching, Crowley turned on his heel and walked out the door to the front room with Aziraphale at his heels. The human did not trust the demon alone with his books the least bit.

“All right, let’s go get something to eat, then,” Crowley offered as he wrenched open the front door of the shop.

“Why?” Aziraphale inquired as he caught up to him (his shorter legs be damned), trying his best to have the word come out in as polite of manner as possible.

“It’s obvious you’re too scared to leave the shop on your own, so I’ll accompany you to a dreaded market. Can’t have you dying of starvation on me,” Crowley groused, completely annoyed with the lack of food and the prospect that he had to go to the market just to get some.

Ignoring the fact that Crowley had just pointed out what a wimp he was, Aziraphale found himself smiling as he shrugged on his coat, “Oh… that’s actually quite kind of you.”

With all of the power of the seven circles of Hell, Crowley glanced back over his shoulder with as menacing of a scowl as he could muster. Grating out through a growl, Crowley snapped, “I’m not kind, angel. Just remember that, as agreed, in public situations you’re to do as I say,” his scowl morphed into a smug simper, “I get to test out how well you can obey me, now.”

Suddenly dreading the prospect of getting food, as if that were even possible of him, Aziraphale sighed. At that moment, the previous night’s antics came back to him. Including himself trying to pay the demon a tiny bit of consolidating kindness and having it be thrown back into his face with a heaping amount of taunting. It was then that the human had decided that in his mind, Crowley was insufferable. No doubt about it anymore.

“Yes, very well,” Aziraphale muttered as he fetched his old beat up wallet and pocketed it along with his mobile from beside the door. “Shall we be off, then?”

“Yeah, I’ll start up the car,” Crowley dug in his own pockets for his keys to the bentley.

“Absolutely not, we will take the bus,” Aziraphale figuratively dug his heels into the ground decidedly. 

“What the heavens for?” Crowley asked with narrowed eyes, pocketing his car keys once more.

“While my current situation may be undesirable to the utmost extent,” Aziraphale took the door from Crowley’s grip and held it open for the other, “I don’t wish to die just yet.”

Smirking, Crowley sauntered through the doorway and out onto the doorstep, “Well, that’s a relief. Having a death wish would make my part of the arrangement very difficult.”

Sparing him a half-hearted glare, Aziraphale joined Crowley on the doorstep and began to lock up his shop. Just as Aziraphale was finishing up his task at hand, Crowley noticed a trio of humans pacing towards them. They had no defining features other than the fact that all three of them had clipboards in hand and pasted on grins that didn’t reach their eyes.

“Angel,” Crowley nudged Aziraphale in the side who was finishing up locking the door.

“Yes?” He replied as he turned around, immediately his eyes fell on the three eerily smiling faces approaching them. Oh, God, not now.

Tugging on Crowley’s arm, Aziraphale tried to pull the demon along quickly enough to make his escape, but it was too late. The three parasites were already at the foot of the stairs leading down from his doorway. They used their body mass to block any sort of exit. One of the three parasites, the leader of them who stood in the middle, beamed up at Aziraphale, showing her teeth. He couldn’t decide if he loathed these people more than demons and angels combined.

The woman tucked a lock of red hair behind her ear as she spoke up, “Mr. Fell! How lovely to catch you on this fine morning.”

In his mind, Aziraphale decided that “catch” was indeed the appropriate word here.

Beside him, he was aware of Crowley looking between him and the three menaces in front of them. Pasting on his own fake grin, Aziraphale forced out, “Oh, yes. Uhm, hello. You’re the…”

“Neighbourhood watch,” the woman supplied as the two lackies beside her nodded in agreement to their leader.

Crowley sneered at the humans blocking their exit, “And? Who cares-”

Aziraphale stepped in front of Crowley with a nervous chuckle. As pleasantly as he could, he said, “Right. Well, what can I do for you?”

Crowley glared at the back of Aziraphale’s head. Why did the human put up with this shit? It was annoying just to witness.

The woman stood up straighter with her fake smile absolutely dripping honeysuckle acid now, “Glad you asked! You’ve been moved into our neighbourhood for a couple of weeks now, but your shop is still a bit… unsightly. We just wanted to ensure you had plans of fixing it up to match the rest of the street.”

Aziraphale gave a nervous chuckle as he began to ring his hands together, “Erm-”

“A shop like yours can bring down the real estate value of the whole street, you know,” the woman clicked her pen open and poised it over the clipboard. “So when can we expect this problem resolved?”

As Aziraphale struggled to formulate some sort of reply that would pacify the vultures, Crowley grabbed him by the elbow and tugged him behind himself. 

The human stumbled backwards behind the demon with a glare at the rude action, “Crowley what are you-”

The demon ignored him, scowling down at the three nuisances in front of him. With practiced ease, Crowley lifted his right hand and snapped his fingers. At once, the three members of the neighbourhood watch all stood stiff as boards, arms clamped down at their sides, with completely blank faces of stone. Aziraphale watched in astonishment as Crowley told them in a bored tone, “Please leave, you’re irritating.”

Just like conditioned soldiers, the three neighbourhood watch members all turned around at the same time and headed back across the street from whence they came with their footing matching each others perfectly. 

Aziraphale’s mouth fell agape. He didn’t know if he was amazed, grateful, or terrified of the demon’s ability.

“Good lord,” he breathed. “Was that really necessary, Crowley?”

The demon stepped down the stairs and glanced back at Aziraphale, “Not really. But it must have felt just a tiny bit satisfying for you too, didn’t it?”

Aziraphale followed down the stairs after Crowley and was surprised to find himself mirthfully grinning. It had, indeed, been quite satisfying to witness. “Bit of a wily serpent, aren’t you?”

Matching Aziraphale’s grin with a more sadistic one of his own, Crowley replied, “You haven’t the slightest idea, angel.”

xxxXxxx

It only took about an hour of being accompanied by Crowley in The Real Food Market in Kings Cross to be entirely exhausted. Practically feeling the bags begin to form underneath his eyes, Aziraphale trudged around the market behind Crowley with basket in hand. As they went, Crowley threw whatever he desired for himself into the basket. At this point the amount of food that was piled into it was almost toppling out of it and was much too heavy for a normal person to carry comfortably. 

Sighing, Aziraphale heaved the basket after the demon, dodging people as he went. The only perk to this outing was the fact that he had not seen a single demonic or angelic seeming person the entire trip. Being in the demon’s presence truly was helping to ward off others. Attempting not to let his exhaustion show from being a pack mule, Aziraphale spoke up, “Crowley, are you almost finished-”

“Shhhh,” Crowley held up his finger slyly to his mouth with a coy smile. Promptly, Aziraphale clamped his mouth shut with a tired glare.

“Wo-ow. Pretty impressive compliance, angel,” Crowley grinned, earning an eye roll from the human. 

Holding back a few choice words, Aziraphale asked once more, “Are you finished yet?” He hiked the basket further up his hip, trying his very best not to drop it.

Crowley sniffed, glancing at the alcohol bottles loaded into the basket with a thoughtful hum. “I suppose so. You can get what you want now, just throw it in there.”

Thankfully, Aziraphale located his preferred cocoa brand and a few miscellaneous items of his favourite foods as quickly as possible. The sooner he could set down the basket the better. Once they were both finished, they made their way to the market till to pay for all of the items. With as cheery of a smile as he could muster, Aziraphale handed the basket that was now the weight of a decent sized dog to the woman at the counter. The poor woman just about dropped it as it was handed over. Under his breath, Aziraphale bid a few apologies.

“Take out your wallet and pay for it,” Crowley ordered him, casually perusing through a tabloid rack that sat by the till counter. 

Aziraphale’s mouth fell agape, “But-”

Crowley wagged his finger, not even sparing the human a glance. “Ah-ah. No buts, remember?”

The human snapped his mouth shut once again. With a groan under his breath, he fished out his wallet from his coat pocket and peered inside the leather billfold. Only a few pound notes resided inside. Not nearly enough to pay for even half the amount that Crowley had grabbed. Honestly, how did his father expect him to be an accountant? He couldn’t even handle his own finances.

Having been staring over Aziraphale’s shoulder, Crowley also saw the few notes in the other’s wallet and came to the same conclusion as the human. 

“It’ll be a hundred and eight,” the woman spoke up, having bagged all of the items into copious amounts of brown paper bags.

“Erm,” Aziraphale thumbed the notes from his wallet and tried to think of what to do. He really did not want to use his credit card for something such as this.

Setting the tabloid back into the rack, Crowley nudged Aziraphale out of the way and drew out his own wallet. Aziraphale stared as the demon pulled out a wad of notes and paid the woman for the lot. “Just grab the bags then, won’t you,” Crowley said to him, shoving his wallet back into his pocket before striding towards the exit of the market.

Aziraphale was left to dumbly blink at the retreating demon’s back before he snapped back to reality. He tried his very best to pick up all of the paper bags into his arms with the till woman helping him.

“Your boyfriend is a bit of a prick isn’t he,” the woman huffed, delicately handing the last bag to Aziraphale.

Over top of all the bags, Aziraphale stammered, “Oh, no. He’s not-”

“Angel, the bus will be here soon,” Crowley’s voice rang after him.

Abandoning his attempt to conceal his sexuality, Aziraphale bid the woman a small thank you for the help and raced after the demon. Crowley wasn’t his boyfriend, but he definitely was a prick. He could agree on that much.

Catching up to Crowley, Aziraphale snipped, “You’re enjoying ordering me around too much, you know that.”

Absentmindedly, Crowley checked his watch, “I’m making an example. Have you seen any angels or demons round?”

“Well,” Aziraphale fought to catch his breath and keep the groceries from falling, “No, but…”

The demon shrugged his sleeve back down over his watch, “Exactly. It’s clear to them now that you’re my ‘kill’ so to speak. Most won’t interfere when I’m around now unless they’re stronger than me and luckily for us that’s not too many.”

“Oh, I see,” Aziraphale frowned. He still had a feeling that Crowley was enjoying it, though. “Say, you don’t work do you? Not a human job, I mean. How do you have so much money?”

“I have my ways, angel. I’m not one for craftsmanship, but I can get things done well and quick,” Crowley mumbled, watching the bus pull up to the stop. Just as Aziraphale was about to step onto the bus, Crowley reached out and took the bag full of his alcohol bottles from the human.

Mouth falling open slightly in surprise, Aziraphale stared as the demon relieved him of the heaviest load of the bags and hopped onto the bus.

“Sushi sound good to you for lunch? I know a great place near yours, we can order out,” Crowley asked, taking out a few notes to pay the bus driver for their fare.

Scrambling onto the bus after him, Aziraphale nodded with a smile, “Sushi sounds wonderful.”

Crowley was definitely a prick, but whether the demon would admit it or not, he had a few kind moments.

xxxXxxx

Back in the shop, Crowley had ordered the sushi for the both of them while Aziraphale packed away the groceries. The large amount of bags that belonged to Crowley, he neatly stashed together in the front room into a cardboard box that he had used on move-in day.

Despite his situation, Aziraphale couldn’t help but feel a little comfortable around the demon. He glanced at Crowley who was sat in the front of the shop on the armchair that was now “his”. The demon slung his long limbs over the chair and was swishing his newly bought wine around a glass that Aziraphale had supplied him. In the background, a radio that Crowley had brought in from his car was belting a song by… King, or something. At the moment, Aziraphale couldn’t recall the name, but he supposed it wasn’t truly important.

He found himself smiling as he packed the rest of the groceries away and Crowley paid the delivery man at the door. “Sushis here, angel,” Crowley called.

Rolling his sleeves back down from where he had them rolled up at his elbows, Aziraphale stalked into the front room. There was something that felt rather domestic between them and he couldn’t place why. But nonetheless, he found himself enjoying it. Aziraphale wasn’t used to having such company, let alone someone that he may consider a sort of companion. The only person he had was Anathema who would stop by once in a while to discuss the book. With Crowley he could momentarily forget about everything, even if Crowley was one of the problems he was facing.

As he entered the room, Crowley handed him a small plastic box which he took in his hands graciously, “Thank you.”

“Don’t mention it,” Crowley quipped as he sat back down to enjoy his own California rolls with his wine.

Placing his own takeout on the till counter, Aziraphale opened up his box of norimaki. He felt his mouth water as he stared at the rolls of sushi that could only be accurately described as delectable. The meal before him was one of the nicest he would have in weeks as he could not afford things such as this. Especially since he hadn’t been opening up his shop regularly enough considering he was experiencing angelic and demonic intervention on the daily.

Picking apart the supplied chopsticks, Aziraphale licked his lips in anticipation. Pinching a piece of sushi between the two chopsticks, the human brought the delicious food to his mouth when there was a loud knock at the door. 

With his mouth wide open, poised over the piece of sushi, Aziraphale glanced over to Crowley who just stared back at him. Sighing, he set down the piece of sushi back into its container and strode over to the front door. His stomach growled at him.

“Who’s there?” Aziraphale asked the door, wrapping his hand around the handle.

A muffled voice from the other side of the door answered, “Anathema!”

“Oh,” he muttered, quickly unlocking and opening up the door to reveal the witch. She grinned at him, her intelligent eyes seeming to twinkle a bit from behind her glasses as they always did.

“Aziraphale, I’m sorry I couldn’t come sooner. Newt really can’t be left on his own,” she sighed as she pushed past him and into the shop. “He made our entire side of the street lose power when he tried to work the toaster and just-” she paused, her eyes falling on Crowley.

A beat went by of awkward silence between all three in the room. Aziraphale wasn’t certain how he expected Anathema to react to a demon lounging around in his shop, but it definitely wasn’t how she actually reacted.

In a flash, Anathema whipped out a small vial from her belt, uncorked it and held it out to Crowley menacingly. The demon seemed completely unphased and slightly bored at her antics until she shouted, “This is holy water, demon. Leave now or I’ll use it!”

As if a rubber band had snapped, everyone in the room was thrown into movement. Crowley launched himself to his feet with a panicked and totally manly screech as he narrowly dodged the stream of water that Anathema flicked out from the vial. Aziraphale jumped between the two with his hands held up defensively, trying to explain the situation while the witch began to let out a string of Latin sounding words.

Instantly, Crowley crumpled to the ground with an agony filled groan. Clamping his hands over his ears, the demon curled into a ball on the floor as his face scrunched up in pain, “Stop her before the bitch exorcises me!”

Blinking, Aziraphale quickly and uncharacteristically clamped a hand over Anathema’s mouth and used his other to hold her still. She thrashed against him in alarm, trying to shoot another stream of holy water at the trembling demon on the floor.

“A-Anathema! Anathema, please stop!” Aziraphale rushed out in one breath, trying his best to distance her from Crowley without hurting her.

She wrenched her head away from his hand, “Aziraphale, you don’t know what you’re saying he’s tempting you!” She held up the vial above her head, ready to throw the entire thing at the demon.

Aziraphale shook his head animatedly, “No, he’s not! I signed a contract with him- he’s protecting me!”

At that, Anathema immediately ceased all movement. She slowly lowered the vial down from over her head and glared intensely at the two of them, “Why would you do something like that?”

“I…,” Aziraphale paused to think. Why had he done it? “I.. I was afraid. He was offering me protection and help with the book. I suppose I was desperate, Anathema…”

Her gaze softened, “Oh, Aziraphale. I’m sorry I haven’t been around more, but you really shouldn’t have turned to a demon for help. That’s literally the worst thing you could have done.”

While the two humans bid each other apologies, Crowley was scraping himself off of the floor with pained grunts- using the armchair as leverage, “‘Scuse me, struggling demon over here!”

The two looked over. Aziraphale held an apologetic look towards the demon while the witch glared at him with full unadulterated hatred. 

Rushing over to him, Aziraphale helped the demon to his feet by offering his arm, “Crowley, are you all right?”

Grunting, Crowley hissed as he scowled at the witch, “Yeah, course. Love near death experiences. Keeps me on my toes.”

Anathema gave him a sickly sweet smile in return, “You must have a lot of those seeing as you’re so agile.”

“Oh, bite me,” Crowley growled.

“You’re the one that called me a bitch. Maybe if you were a more polite demon, I wouldn’t have tried to douse you in holy water,” she crossed her arms over her chest with a pointed look.

“That is true…,” Aziraphale mumbled. He looked up to meet Crowley’s gaze, “You should apologise.”

Crowley’s mouth fell open wide. “She tried to exorcise me!” He shouted, pointing an accusing finger in Anathema’s direction.

“That is also true. Anathema, you should apologise as well,” Aziraphale frowned, looking back at her.

“I’m not apologising for trying to kill a demon,” she huffed.

The demon raked a hand through his hair, “Oh, sod this. I’m leaving, angel.” Crowley wrenched his arm away from Aziraphale and stalked towards the door. 

“I’ll be back later with the photographs of all the angels and demons on earth as promised. Good luck with her,” he finished with a growl and left, slamming the door behind him.

Anathema turned to Aziraphale with a suspicious quirk in her brow, "He calls you 'angel'?"

Flushing, Aziraphale replied, "Sometimes…"

xxxXxxx

Half an hour after the demon took his dramatic leave, Aziraphale and Anathema were sat across from one another at a table in Aziraphale’s backroom. He had made himself a cup of cocoa and a cup of tea for Anathema, but she hadn’t uttered a single word to him since Crowley left. Fiddling with the handle of his mug, Aziraphale tried his best not to meet the other’s scathing glare. He couldn’t see her glare, but he definitely felt it burning into his forehead.

“Aziraphale,” she spoke up, causing him to flinch.

Reluctantly, the young man glanced up uneasily from his cup with a small smile; much to the likeness of a child who was caught stealing from the cookie jar. “Yes, dear?” He replied as charmingly as possible, hoping his politeness would win him brownie points with the seething woman.

However, when he met Anathema’s scowl that was filled with more rage than the devil himself could muster up- he knew there was no appeasing her with his pleasantries.

“How could you enlist his help? I told you to stay away from all supernatural beings! And instead you end up making a contract with one,” Anathema scolded, clenching her hands around her cup tightly enough that Aziraphale was sure it would shatter with even an ounce more of force.

“You’re not being fair, Anathema,” he frowned and attempted to delicately explain himself. “The note from the book told me to guard myself well with the serpent, correct?”

Anathema’s eyes narrowed impossibly more, “And?”

The young man pointed to his own eyes, “Crowley has these brilliant yellow eyes… like a snake’s.” He faltered a bit, becoming very aware that he just called the demon’s eyes brilliant. 

Shaking away the thoughts, Aziraphale continued, “I’ve seen demons along my street, none of them have the same trait. Not only that, but his appalling belt buckle is a serpent’s head and he wears snakeskin boots. He even has a tattoo of a snake on his face! I thought, perhaps, he is the serpent in which Agnes was referring to. He was offering me assistance and I was frightened, so I accepted it. I’m not saying it was wise of me, but we made a contract of mutual benefits.”

Aziraphale took a sip from his mug to clear his throat that felt like it was constricting up on him. He truly did not do well with people being upset with him. It set his anxiety on edge to the greatest extent and provided him with flashbacks he didn’t wish to relive. “Crowley told me he doesn’t wish for the end of the world either- that he wishes to help me protect the book from angels and demons. In addition, he’s protecting me as well.”

A pause went by with Anathema staring him down, her lips sucked in as if she was holding back a verbal beration. “And what did he ask for in return, Aziraphale?” She asked coldly.

The blood went to Aziraphale’s ears immediately. “Well, um. You see, dear…”

“What did he ask for in return?” She repeated with as much disappointment as before.

Aziraphale mumbled back, “He wants me to help him deceive other demons. He told me he could only help if they didn’t suspect anything. In public I have to pretend that he is tempting me, so that the others believe he is doing his job and getting the book from me.”

Anathema sucked on her teeth, “Right. And this seems like a sound idea to you?”

Throwing up his hands in exasperation, Aziraphale sighed, “No, I’m aware it’s quite insane! But I… I sort of trust him, Anathema. I can’t explain it- maybe I just want to put my faith in something- but for now I trust him a bit.”

Blowing out air through her nose fiercely, Anathema retorted, “All right, fine. I won’t argue about this anymore- I know you can’t get out of the contract even if you wanted to. But I still don’t trust him or like him.”

Aziraphale smiled with a snort, “I believe that to be fair enough. I don’t think I really like him either.”

Setting down her cup of tea, Anathema pushed back her chair from the small wooden table and stood up. She paced over to Aziraphale’s clothes trunk and took out the wooden box where the book was kept. Quickly, she strode back over to Aziraphale with box in hand and set it down atop the table. 

“How much reading have you done?” She asked.

Glad the discussion was off of him and Crowley, Aziraphale eagerly replied, “Not too much. I have been trying to sort of ease into it.”

Unlatching the lock and taking the book out from its confines, Anathema hummed, “Well, we can’t ease into it anymore, Aziraphale. I have reliable intel that things are brewing in Heaven and Hell. Sooner or later both sides are going to get more aggressive in trying to get it, so we need a plan and fast.” She cracked open the book, flipping ahead to recent events with ease.

“What do you suppose we do?” Aziraphale asked carefully, his stomach turning at the notion that he would actually have to deal with this mess.

“I say we educate ourselves as best we can on the events to come, not the ones that have already happened. I think we should start by reading the events of armageddon. We should know how it starts and how it ends, including which side wins.”

Aziraphale licked his lips, “Right, but isn’t God only meant to know that sort of thing?”

“Well, God isn’t dealing with the shit we’re dealing with right now. Agnes was a conniving witch, but her book always warns of events to come and who will be affected by them. If the book is staying in your care, I doubt she will let anything happen to you and if something is going to happen to you she would write about it,” Anathema trailed her fingers down the page, searching for the starting predictions of armageddon. 

“Well, that’s comforting,” Aziraphale muttered into his mug as he took another sip.

“I found it,” Anathema held up the book, showing Aziraphale the first prediction of armageddon about the four horsemen. 

The day went by with the two stuck at the cramped table. Multiple cups of tea and cocoa were made, but they didn’t soothe the soul as they usually did. Anathema read each prediction of armageddon aloud to Aziraphale who always enjoyed being read to, but at the moment he was dreading it. Listening to how the world was meant to end had him ready to lose his lunch in the toilet. If anything, from what he was being told about the sea boiling, stars crashing to the earth, all life forms dying- Aziraphale was even more set on trying to prevent all of this. Why would anyone want something so… so devastating to occur? He wondered why God would want this. It was the equivalent of a painter taking their most prized painting and putting their knee through it. God was going to shake the world like an etch-a-sketch and Aziraphale felt powerless.

Finally, in their reading, they reached the end of the predictions. The very last page of the book that held the truths of the world. 

Anathema turned the page slowly. Aziraphale expected her to start her reading once more, but she didn’t. Glancing up with tired eyes, Aziraphale saw Anathema’s face drawn into a thoughtful frown.

“What is it, dear?”

She shook her head, “I have no idea.” She turned the book around and thrust it in front of Aziraphale. The young man’s eyebrows pinched together as he stared down at… well, he wasn’t sure what he was looking at.

At the very top of the page, there was a symbol. If he had known any better, he would say it was sort of an alchemic looking symbol. It was circular with many different angular shapes within it and letters. Carefully, Aziraphale counted the number of lines and letters and found there to be exactly twenty-six including correlations. Although, some of the letters looked to be blacked out, rendering them unreadable. Below the large symbol was a thick passage of text that seemed to be absolute gibberish. It was comprised of the English alphabet, but the script made no logical sense. However, there were spaces in between what must have been words.

“It looks like some sort of code?” Aziraphale stated, thoroughly enthralled at the possibility of a mystery.

“This is definitely written by Agnes, the handwriting is hers. But why would she write in a code? Agnes was fond of riddles, but not straight up ciphers. It doesn’t make any sense,” Anathema shook her head.

“Unless Anges didn’t want anyone to know the outcome of armageddon,” Aziraphale mumbled, staring down at the page and trying to mentally piece it all together.

“She wouldn’t have written it down then,” Anathema leaned in close to the page, studying it. “I think we need a key to solve it, there’s too many possible permutations to figure it out- we would be sitting here forever.”

He nodded in agreement, “I believe you’re right.” 

The pair stared down at the book as if they were looking at all of the secrets to the world. Which they technically were. Both sat in complete silence, trying to come up with a solution to solve the puzzle that lay before them. Another half hour went by with them racking their brains for anything that may be helpful, but when it came down to it- Aziraphale was just a bookshop owner. What did he know about solving centuries old codes with religious significance? Just recently he had rejected all religions and now he was trying to figure out how a religious war would end.

Sighing, Anathema stood once more. She massaged her temple with a defeated demeanor, “I’m going to head back to the bakery, it’s no use just staring at it. I have some books back home about religious symbols; maybe I can find an answer in one of them.” She grabbed her bag up from the ground and hiked it over her shoulder.

“Try to get some sleep, Aziraphale,” she flashed him a fleeting smile before taking her leave.

“You as well,” he said after her.

The young man was left alone in his shop with the damned book. It just sat on his table, taunting him incessantly. Scratching his head, Aziraphale leered sullenly at the book. How could they even begin to solve this one? 

Although, the symbol did look a tad familiar. He could see flashes of it inside of his head. The sort of memory that feels like it was a fever dream that never actually occurred, but it wound up somehow as a ghost ship in his mind.

“Oh, dear,” he sighed, closing the book and locking it back up in his box. 

He supposed that sleep was definitely needed at this point. A bugger of a headache was forming quite quickly.

As the human prepared himself for bed, he idly wondered why Crowley hadn’t returned as promised. He may be a demon, but he seemed like the type to keep his word. It was probably just as well, though. Aziraphale was beyond exhausted from the day’s events and not in the mood to put up with the insolent man.

Crawling onto his mattress and pulling the warm covers up over him, Aziraphale smiled sweetly to himself. Nothing in the world could match that comforting feeling of being in one’s own bed for the first time since rising, even if it was a shoddy old mattress. Just as the young man was ridding his mind of all of the pressing thoughts and his eyes felt heavy with the sweet sense of alluring sleep… a loud bang sounded on his window.

Eyes flying open, Aziraphale shot up with his heart nearly throwing itself up his throat. Blinking, Aziraphale quickly found the small round window of his room and saw the face of Crowley staring back at him through it.

“Angel, invite me in. I got the bloody photographs!”

Groaning, Aziraphale flung himself back down onto his mattress and shoved his pillow against his face, screaming into it.

xxxXxxx

A/N: This chapter was actually really fun to write. I wrote it in like two days and I hope that doesn’t show because I went through and meticulously planned out the next few chapters. I’m really excited for it. Particularly next chapter cause shit goes down and I’m a bit of a sadistic fuck? I don’t why I put a question mark there, there’s no question about it, really. 

Anywho, I hope you enjoyed it as always whether it gave you a few laughs or overall entertainment I’d love to hear about it. It truly keeps me writing, so leave a kudo or a comment if you feel like it. Thank you!


End file.
